Denny Hamlin celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway. [credit NASCAR Via Getty Images]
As the white flag waved and the field attempted to start the final lap of the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Speedway, a multi-car wreck left car parts including a bumper littered on the front straight. Denny Hamlin had just taken the lead away from Kevin Harvick and held the position when the caution flag waved to freeze the field and give the Joe Gibbs Racing driver the victory.
The win, Hamlin’s first points-paying victory of the season, gives the Toyota driver an excellent shot at making the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and moves him into 12th position in the point standings.
Hamlin led 12 laps in the 188 lap event. Second place finisher Greg Biffle led the most laps with 58.
Clint Bowyer, Brian Vickers and AJ Allmendinger rounded out the top five.
Eight caution flags flew in the event. Besides the final caution, the biggest ones occurred when Brad Keselowski spun at the front of the pack and collected Trevor Bayne, Michael Annett, Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Alex Bowman, Jeff Gordon, Cole Whitt, Paul Menard, Brian Scott, David Gilliland, Jimmie Johnson and Justin Allgaier (there are five Sprint Cup Champions in that list) and then 28 laps later when Johnson spun and collected Austin Dillon, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Joey Logano, David Ragan, Reed Sorenson, Kurt Busch and Michael McDowell.
What They Said:
Denny Hamlin – #11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry (Winner)
You know, we’ve kind of been preaching and beating up how we are on all the other racetracks. You know, coming to this racetrack you know it’s an equalizer and you’ve got as good a shot as anyone. You’ve got to take advantage of these moments and these type of racetracks when you feel like you’re a little bit off on the others, and so we were able to do that today, and now it buys us some time to get our program where it needs to be for September when it really counts.
For me I was really coming off of Turn 4, and I knew once we got single file on the bottom, I think I was the clear — the 16 was clear. I was in really good shape. I knew from Daytona that you wanted to be out front. As long as you could mirror drive a little bit, I would much rather be on the defensive than I would the offensive in the last few lap situation.
My goal was just to get to that white flag. Once I saw — he said that they were spinning right as I crossed the line. I said, no problem, I hope it jams the racetrack up for all I care and throw the caution immediately. I think NASCAR did actually a really good job of letting the race play out as long as they possibly could and still keep everyone safe in the conditions. They knew that there was debris at the start-finish line, so we weren’t going to be able to race all the way back no matter what, but they at least gave everyone a half a lap to do whatever you could to make your positions and improve your positions. Obviously it made for a decent finish for my standpoint, but I think either way no matter what, whether we had to go to the line, we were in pretty good shape.
Greg Biffle – #16 3M Window Film Ford Fusion (finished 2nd)
The last few restarts were actually really good for us. The 88 or somebody got — I think the 11 got shoved by or they got a run on the top, and you know, this racetrack is so wide here, I didn’t really even attempt to block or try and go up and block the upper lane really just because you lose some momentum and it’s so wide, so I just really focused on staying on the bottom and trying to keep the momentum up.
That final restart Clint gave us a huge, huge push, and we had a huge run at the 11 car. I looked in the mirror and I saw the smoke behind me, and I wasn’t really sure whether the caution was going to come out and I didn’t know what to do and I thought about making my move on the 11 right then because I had a huge run and I could have, and then probably off of 2 I could have passed him again, got beside him and sucked by him.
But I just didn’t want to pass too early. I was going to be the lone soldier on the outside lane, and I was going to be 15th by the time we got back around to the start-finish line. So I was just waiting. I was backing up off of him quite a bit on the backstretch, and I got probably two and a half, three cars away from him, and then they said caution’s out. I was setting up to go by him but just never had the chance.
I wish I would have known we weren’t going to race all the way back, but it was a good day for us. The car was really fast, a lot of speed, and just happy to come out of here with a clean car.
Clint Bowyer – #15 Peak Antifreeze Motor Oil Toyota Camry (finished 3rd) Long day, long race, but it’s all about being there at the end. The only way I know to guarantee myself and my team that I can at least give them a chance is to be patient and be boring, lead a boring race there for a while and then go for broke at the end. We did that, we got up in position and everything was going right, and it’s just like Greg said, you’re kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
I liked the situation that I was in for sure. I knew Greg was going to try something, you know, and we did have a big push at him, and you see those guys crashing in the rear view mirror, and you’re like, history has shown usually if they’re straightened up not sitting in the middle of the racetrack we’re going to finish this thing under green, and if you pull out right there and win the race right there, you might be 15th by the time you get two miles back over here to the start-finish line.
We finished third.
Any time you finish on the podium at Talladega you’re somewhat excited but any time you’re that close to the front and taking that checkered flag, it’s pretty easy to get greedy in this sport. It’s kind of just a little bit of both.
Kevin Harvick – #4 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet SS (finished 7th)
We were in a good spot there at the end and what you would want to put yourself in a position to win. I felt like I got a good restart with our Jimmy John’s Chevrolet, but our line just never formed up.
The bottom stayed together, and I guess the 40 pulled out of line, and our line just never got formed up. All in all, it was a good day for our Jimmy John’s Chevrolet. I don’t think it would have made a difference if the caution hadn’t come out on the last lap. Our line just wasn’t formed whatsoever. We needed the caution before that to not have come out so we could have kept going.
Kyle Larson – #42 Target Chevrolet SS (finished 10th)
Yeah, it was good. I think we were actually a little bit better than 10th. I think the finish was when we crossed the stripe. But I was really hoping for a top 20 just to stay out of trouble, and to get a top 10 is really nice.
I spent most of the day just — well, pretty much all day just trying not to make any spectacular moves to put myself in a bad spot to get in a wreck, because like I said, the 42 hasn’t had much luck on superspeedways with Juan and myself at Daytona. Just wanted to stay out of trouble. We’ve been making up a lot of points throughout the year after Daytona, and to come back to another superspeedway, I was really nervous. Glad to get a good finish and stay up there in points.
Kyle Busch – #18 M&M’s Pretzel Toyota Camry (finished 12th)
We had a pretty good M&M’s Pretzel Camry. We started in the back but made our way into the top-three, and I was just biding our time. The 2 (Brad Keselowski) spun there in front of me, and we got a piece of that. The guys did an awesome job fixing the damage. We made our way back up there at the end, but someone got into my left rear coming to the white flag down the frontstretch and pinballed me into the 13 (Casey Mears), so that hurt our momentum, and then the caution came out and we ended up 12th. Our M&M’s Pretzel Camry was better than that, but that’s how it goes in plate racing.
Kurt Busch – #41 Haas Automation Chevrolet SS (finished 33rd)
It looked like to me that the 48 (Jimmie Johnson) just got loose, and we didn’t have anywhere to go, so our day was done. It’s just so frustrating. We had a good Haas Automation Chevy and were in the mix all day. I don’t know if we could have gotten up to the front in the final laps, but I would have liked to have had that chance at the end of the race. We were just looking for the right lane to move to the front, and we had a couple of our teammates up there with us, so who knows what could have happened.
Danica Patrick – #10 GoDaddy Chevrolet SS (finished (22nd)
It was good out front. I wish I could’ve stayed there. It was getting hot a lot. I think you saw that from a lot of cars. It was a hot day here in Talladega, and when you get back a little bit in the field it gets even worse.
I was in the second lane, the second car back, real early on, and it just felt like that line kind of died a little bit. Then I started getting passed. So I dropped back to get some clean air. Got some track position a couple of times and got up there a little bit, but heating was definitely an issue. It really limited me to the bottom lane, because as soon as I jumped up, so did my water pressure. Our GoDaddy Chevy was good out front, and I felt good about that.
It was good to lead some laps, because it had been awhile and we missed a lot of accidents. The good news is this car is going to Daytona. That’s a positive. The result was not necessarily too much of a positive, but it’s going to get rolled up on the truck, and that is more than a lot of people can say coming from a speedway like this.
Up Next: 5-hour Energy 400 Kansas Speedway – Kansas City, KS Saturday, May 10th 7:46pm ET
Defending Champion: Matt Kenseth