From Nashville to Michigan to the Poconos, the Denny Hamlin Express keeps roaring along and collecting checkered flags.
The red-hot Toyota driver ran down and passed Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell to win his career-best third straight race Sunday, taking the Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pa.
With Bell’s No. 20 in full fuel-conservation mode, Hamlin won for the third straight Sunday by chasing down his teammate, passing him with four laps to go and beating points leader Tyler Reddick by 1.678 seconds for his eighth career Pocono victory and the 64th of his career.
“My first win (ever) was here (in 2006), it’s just so special here,” said Hamlin after leading 28 laps around the three-turned track. “This is a team effort. They’re giving me the fast cars, and the pit crew is flawless right now. We’ve just got it all going.”
Reddick was not thrilled with the runner-up finish considering the car he was trying to catch has been stalking his standings lead in May and June.
“If the 11 wasn’t the winner, you could consider this a good day,” the No. 45 23XI Racing driver said. “Scoring the points we did just didn’t get the job done.”
Hamlin chopped his standings points deficit to 19 behind Reddick.
William Byron, John Hunter Nemechek and Kyle Larson completed the top five.
Racing with a fractured wrist, Bell led Hamlin by 11 seconds with 21 laps left, but he ran out of fuel with two laps to go and dropped serious points by ending up 26th.
Toyota won for the 10th time in 14 races at the triangular track.
With the 160-lapper moved ahead two hours due to bad weather expected later, Hamlin paced the field to green, but Larson, starting next to the No. 11 Toyota, took the lead immediately at the 2.5-mile track and held a nearly two-second advantage.
However, Hamlin used a slower car and moved by Larson with five laps left. He went on to claim 30-lap Stage 1 over Larson, Ty Gibbs, Chase Briscoe and Chris Buescher.
While racing for second with Hamlin and Ryan Blaney on Lap 41, Ford driver Zane Smith looped his No. 38 in Turn 1 and wrecked for the race’s first caution for incident, and Reddick led Nemechek in a Toyota front row.
Six laps later, Shane van Gisbergen, Josh Berry and Austin Hill went three-wide off Turn 3, and a sliding melee broke out on the frontstretch.
Nemechek, who led a race-high 42 laps, gave up the lead as the 65-lap Stage 2 neared its end, and Chase Elliott and Hamlin came to pit road for full service with six laps remaining.
The shuffling during the off-sequenced pit stop allowed Front Row Motorsports’ Todd Gilliland to beat Briscoe for the segment win, the first of the No. 34 Ford driver’s career. Nemechek, Erik Jones and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. followed the front two.
On Lap 111, Hamlin regained the lead from Nemechek by clearing the No. 42 Toyota off Turn 1 and held the point through the pit service by the leaders that began 10 laps later.
–Field Level Media
