Denny Hamlin had a brief chat with grand marshal Bill Murray before Sunday’s race, and the conversation worked out in the Toyota driver’s favor.
The Joe Gibbs Racing standout started from the pole and claimed the second race in the NASCAR Cup Series’ Round of 16 playoffs, beating teammate Chase Briscoe in the Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Ill.
Hamlin and Briscoe wound up second and third behind leader Brad Keselowski on the final restart with 24 laps to go.
Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota, which led a race-high 75 laps, easily passed Keselowski’s No. 6 Ford on old tires and beat Briscoe by 1.620 seconds for Hamlin’s series-best fifth win and 59th of his career.
“I just told (Murray) to talk to the guys behind me and make sure they stay behind me the rest of the race, so we made that happen,” Hamlin joked after the actor sidled up near the window and spoke with the No. 11 driver for a moment.
After walking to the flagstand to a mixture of cheers and boos, the 44-year-old native of Chesterfield, Va., took a slight jab at the crowd at the track near St. Louis.
“Y’all can boo me, but you can either get on the bandwagon or you can get run over by it,” he chided. “Bring (the boos). Bring ‘em on.”
Incredibly, Briscoe finished second despite an on-track incident and issues on his pit stops.
“Our strength was our speed,” Briscoe said. “Our weakness was just the sloppiness — whether it was me behind the wheel or obviously pit road.”
Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano rounded out the top five in the 10-caution race that featured 15 lead changes and 52 caution laps.
JGR Toyotas have won the first two races of the playoffs. Toyota also won for the 200th time.
Hungry for a win after last tasting victory on May 11 at Kansas, Kyle Larson swept by Hamlin on Lap 8 and drove off from the Toyota.
Kyle Busch, who last won two years ago in Illinois, looped his No. 8 Chevrolet by himself on Lap 27 for the first caution, bringing Larson and most of the cars to pit road.
With 10 laps remaining, No. 21 driver Josh Berry — 16th in the playoff standings — wrecked in Turn 2 after contact with Elliott and damaged his Wood Brothers Ford terminally.
Leading with four laps to go in Stage 1, Briscoe and Larson raced each other as if it were the final circuit of the 240-lap, 300-mile race. Briscoe held on to grab the 10 points followed by Larson, Hamlin, William Byron and Blaney.
However, Briscoe locked up his right-front tire down the frontstretch and punted Daniel Suarez’s No. 99 Chevrolet into the wall. To compound matters, Briscoe’s No. 19 crew had a left-rear hang-up on the pit stop.
Wallace grabbed the point early, less than halfway through 95-lap Stage 2, and paced the way for Logano and Christopher Bell, both just under three seconds behind as the segment neared its end.
Following a spin of Blaney by Larson, Bubba Wallace’s 23XI Racing Toyota, which led a total of 73 laps, scored a win in the one-lap shootout to end the stage. Keselowski, Logano, Larson and Bell were the top five. Playoff driver Austin Dillon stayed out on old tires and finished sixth.
–Field Level Media
