No. 11 Toyota holds off the field over the final four laps to capture his first win since the Daytona 500.
Denny Hamlin notched his second win of the season and first ever on a road course road after holding off the field over the final four laps to win the Cheez-It 355 at Watkins Glen International in Upstate New York on Sunday.
For Hamlin it was his 28th win in his Sprint Cup career and he did so battling back spasms throughout the race.
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Coming out of the final turn to the checkered flag, Hamlin had a slight edge over Martin Truex Jr. with Keselowski right on his bumper. Truex was trying to make a bold, late move to overtake Hamlin, but Keselowski caught him in the rear corner spinning him out. The No. 78 tapped the side wall and continued on; unfortunately he lost enough ground to finish eighth.
Road course expert A.J. Allmendinger seemed to have an edge on the field and was one of the favorites (8-1) to win. He had a number of hiccups during the race that cost him the title and despite that, he still wound up fourth. His only Sprint Cup win came at this track in 2014.
Danica Patrick would make a green flag pit stop just before the second caution and she stayed out when most of the leaders came in for tires and gas. She would start fifth, one of her best restarts of the year, however, she would get pushed off the trace in the first turn and shuffled back to 23rd and was never a factor again.
With just 37 laps to go, Rickey Stenhouse Jr. got loose in the carousel, and after hitting the opposite wall, it began a four car wreck that took out Austin Dillon, Greg Biffle and Jimmie Johnson, and caused a red flag while the cleanup took place.
“We were just hustling hard on that restart and got loose over the curb and just kind of spun,” Stenhouse said. “From that point we were just along for the ride. It looked like everybody scattered and it was probably pretty hard to see. We got hit pretty hard.
“The cars started checking up in front of me and they all moved out of the way and the No. 17 (Ricky Stenhouse) was sitting there, stopped,” said Johnson.” I remember seeing a door number and I was so thankful it was the passenger-side door and not the driver-side door because I plowed him. I really hit the car hard.”
Four laps later, a second accident also involved four cars after David Ragan lost control and collected Carl Edwards and Alex Kennedy.
A number of cautions would follow that allowed cars on fuel strategies to go into save mode and with ten laps to go, Brian Keselowski and Kyle Busch, restarting on the front row, were walking a fine line whether they could make it to the end without running out of gas.
In battling for the lead, each overshot the first turn giving Hamlin the lead with Keselowski shuffled to second and Joey Logano, with a damaged car, taking over third. Martin Truex Jr. took over fourth while Busch fell back to fifth when a few cars behind them spun out leading to another yellow.
Cautions breed cautions and when the field cleared the bus stop, cars stacked up adding another multi-vehicle pileup that involved Ragan, again, along with Kevin Harvick and Chris Buescher, who desperately needed a good finish to climb into the top-30 in points to make the Chase after being a surprise winner the week before. Danica Patrick, Michael McDowell and Aric Almirola were also involved causing a 16 minute red flag.
‘Yeah, I started getting checked-up and I think the No. 23 (David Ragan) hit me from behind and we all just kind of piled in there,” Harvick would say.
It would come down to the final four laps and the leaders were hoping the race would go green the rest of the way. Denny Hamlin had the lead at the restart and would hold off Logano, the defending champion after Truex and Keselowski got tangled up with the No. 78 spinning out.
Here are the official results from the Cheez-It 355 at the Glen:
1 11 Denny Hamlin
2 22 Joey Logano
3 2 Brad Keselowski
4 47 AJ Allmendinger
5 14 Tony Stewart
6 18 Kyle Busch
7 1 Jamie McMurray
8 78 Martin Truex Jr.
9 6 Trevor Bayne
10 20 Matt Kenseth
11 41 Kurt Busch
12 13 Casey Mears
13 24 Chase Elliott
14 88 Jeff Gordon
15 31 Ryan Newman
16 19 Carl Edwards
17 95 Michael McDowell
18 15 Clint Bowyer
19 5 Kasey Kahne
20 21 Ryan Blaney
21 10 Danica Patrick
22 27 Paul Menard
23 38 Landon Cassill
24 32 Boris Said
25 44 Brian Scott #
26 30 Josh Wise
27 43 Aric Almirola
28 98 Cole Whitt
29 42 Kyle Larson
30 34 Chris Buescher
31 3 Austin Dillon
32 4 Kevin Harvick
33 23 David Ragan
34 83 Matt DiBenedetto
35 7 Regan Smith
36 55 Alex Kennedy
37 46 Michael Annett
38 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
39 16 Greg Biffle
40 48 Jimmie Johnson