Posing with unique Cheez-It winner’s trophy Denny Hamlin enjoys spoils of victory. [Joe Jennings Photo]
By Joe Jennings
WATKINS GLEN – The Cheez-It 355 at The Glen turned into a race of survival and Denny Hamlin persevered during the intense final laps to triumph on the high-speed 2.45-mile Watkins Glen International road course. And he did so while in extensive pain from back spasms that emerged overnight.
After completing a classy burnout, Hamlin climbed from his FedEx Freight Toyota Camry and limped into victory lane. He did manage a slight smile during the victory celebration, savoring his first road-course victory and upping his career win total to 28.
For the second consecutive year, The Glen sold out all of its reserved seats and the huge infield area appeared near capacity. Picture-perfect weather helped draw the crowd.
“It was a great day on the race track,” the victor said. “It was both an eventful race and an uneventful one for us. We executed on pit road and didn’t make any mistakes. We had a great strategy, particularly at the end. I was happy to see those caution laps, allowing us to make it on fuel. And on the restarts we executed perfectly.”
Regarding his physical condition, he noted, “My back spasms happen every now and then but never on a race day. When I woke up this morning, I knew I was in big trouble, so we worked on it all day. If it happened on Friday or Saturday, I wouldn’t have turned one lap. It was by far the worst condition I have ever driven in – worse than the knees or anything else. I just wanted to have the race over with, so I could get out of the car.”
Spins and crashes were the order of the day over the closing laps with three restarts and one race stoppage taking place for an accident involving seven cars. In the final restart on the 87th lap, Hamlin, who had taken the lead six laps earlier, put his Toyota Camry safely in front with Martin Truex Jr. on his heels and Brad Keselowski next in line.
The latter two drivers were waging an intense battle until they came together in the final turn with Truex crashing out.
As a result, a hard-charging Joey Logano slipped by to gain second place. Teammate Keselowski regrouped to take third place.
Fourth went to A. J. Allmendinger and fifth to Tony Stewart.
Sixth to 10th places were achieved by Kyle Busch, Truex, Jamie McMurray, Trevor Bayne and Matt Kenseth.
Making his 800th career start, Jeff Gordon had an off day, ending up 14th after knocking his front bumper off early after an altercation with Austin Dillon.
Chris Buescher, the Pocono winner, ended up 30th after getting caught up in the final wreck. He came away still in 31st place in points, three markers out of the Chase cut-off mark of 30th place.
Eight caution flags slowed the race for 20 laps and eight pit lane speeding penalties juggled the running order and derailing the victory outlook for several drivers.