LAS VEGAS–With tears in my eyes and needing a moment to compose myself, denny hamlin Collected his sixth checkered flag and pondered its meaning.
The victory Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was the 60th of his career – a lifetime goal he dedicated to his ailing father – and it gave him the first of four spots in NASCAR’s winner-take-all championship final.
The 44-year-old Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner who is considered the greatest driver never to win a Cup Series title, is back in the championship race for the first time since 2021. He is Joe Gibbs Racing’s winningest driver and now also with Toyota.
Virginia driver moves to 10th on NASCAR’s career wins list kevin harvick,
Hamlin couldn’t hold back tears after frantic final 10-lap drive kyle larson And then JGR teammates chase briscoTwo weeks earlier, he thought he had been assured of his 60th win at Kansas Speedway and was disappointed when he came up short and said he was disappointing his ailing father.
Two weeks later in Las Vegas he performed well in what may be the most important win of his career. He said this win is for his 75-year-old father, who was motivating his son to touch the 60 win mark.
Hamlin said, “You know, he’s not performing well, you know, he’s the one who got me into racing and took me to the racetrack when I was 5 years old.” “Then I made all the sacrifices financially to get ahead, sold everything we had, almost lost our house a couple of times trying to keep it going.
“I’m glad he was able to see 60. It was very important to me.”
Hamlin took four tires on the final restart and restarted in fifth before cutting his way through traffic. he crossed first Joey LoganoHe, who only had two fresh tires, needed a few laps to crush Larson on the inside, and then finally take the lead from Briscoe, who also had only two tires.
It was new team principal Chris Gayle’s deepest run to date in the playoffs, and Hamlin credited an adjustment at the final pit stop for giving him his seventh win of the season – his biggest win since 2020.
Hamlin said, “Taking all factors into consideration, I can’t imagine a bigger win for me than this.”
Joe Gibbs, who lost both of his sons before the age of 50, was impressed by Hamlin’s dedication.
“I know one of the things they shared there was about their father. That was emotional for everybody,” Gibbs said.
Larson, trying to end a 20-race losing streak, was second in a Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. jgr driver christopher bell And Briscoe was third and fourth, tyler reddick Those driving for Hamlin in 23XI Racing were fifth, and reigning Cup Series champion Logano was sixth.
Five of the top six – only Redick – are still in the playoff field. there are others chase elliottWhich finished 18th; daytona 500 winner William Byron was ranked 36th and Ryan Blaney Last time he was in 38th position.
Byron was in front and then ran out of groove with 35 laps remaining, saving his Chevrolet from crashing, but teammate Larson passed him to take the lead. A few minutes later he was involved in a race-ending accident when he drilled the rear end ty dillonUnaware that Dillon was slowing down towards pit road.
Byrne said, “I never saw him waving, I didn’t see any indication that he was getting beat up.” “I had no idea. I was completely devastated. Obviously, I wouldn’t have driven at full speed.”
The bottom four drivers in the playoff standings with two races remaining in this round are Byron, Elliott, Logano and Blaney.
bad day for blaney
Blaney, who was second in the points at the start of the race, suffered a major blow to his title hopes when he crashed into the wall with nine laps remaining in the first stage due to tire problems.
His race ended immediately, he finished 38th and went to the bottom of the eight-driver playoff round. Blaney is the 2023 Cup Series champion, with teammate Joey Logano leading Team Penske to three consecutive titles by winning titles in 2022 and 2024.
On the bright side, Blaney next races at Talladega Superspeedway, where he is a three-time winner and considers himself in position to win.
“You have to be optimistic. I’m not too happy right now, but tomorrow morning I’ll be optimistic going into the next race,” Blaney said. “We’ve had good success in the next two games, so hopefully we can come in and bring the momentum and try to address the hole we’ve gotten ourselves into.”
son of reddick
Redick, who was eliminated from the playoffs last weekend, is still making a run despite serious health complications from his newborn son.
Rookie Reddick, the second son born to Tyler and Alexa Reddick in May, has a “tumor that is ‘compressing’ the renal vein and renal artery. Telling the heart ‘Hey I’m not getting enough blood… pump harder,'” Alexa Reddick wrote in an update last week. She said his heart is enlarged because of it and the 4-month-old will have to have a kidney removed because Doctors have determined that it is no longer working.
Alexa Reddick posted on social media before Sunday’s race in Las Vegas that the rookie will have surgery on Tuesday and will be moved to a unit “to monitor his heart and BP while his renin slowly decreases.”
Edwards makes NASCAR debut
Rob Edwards, longtime team principal of the Andretti Global IndyCar program, made his NASCAR debut in his new role with the overall ownership group this weekend.
Edwards will take on the role of chief performance officer for TWG Motorsports, the Dan Torris-led organization that owns teams in NASCAR, IndyCar, IMSA, Formula E and will launch the new Cadillac F1 team next season.
Under his new role, Edwards will own all of TWG’s properties — a move he told The Associated Press on Sunday he was excited about because it’s a new challenge after nearly three decades in IndyCar. He is expected to compete in about a half-dozen NASCAR races next year with Spire Motorsports, where Taurus is now majority owner.
Andretti Global last month appointed Ron Ruszewski, one of the three fired Team Penske executives in the Indianapolis 500 scandal in May, as its new IndyCar team principal.
Ahead
NASCAR will race next Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, where Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The winner is the defending race. Stenhouse is not part of the playoff field.
