NASCAR Cup Series: Who won the Goodyear 400 at Darlington?

Following Denny Hamlin's dominant win at Martinsville, the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series made the trip to Darlington Raceway for the running of the Goodyear 400. It was the eighth race of the season and capped off NASCAR Throwback Weekend as drivers and teams paid tribute to the sport's past.

Hendrick Motorsports' William Byron dominated the majority of the race, claiming each of the first two stages and leading the first 243 laps. Those were the most laps any driver has led to begin a Cup Series race since Jeff Burton at New Hampshire in 2000. Byron held the top spot, but the first stage was interrupted three times for incident, notably for Kyle Larson's spin down the backstretch on Lap 4.

Early in Stage 2, Byron set the record for the most laps led (108) to start a Darlington race in 128 races, surpassing NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott's previous mark of 107 set in 1988. The second stage was halted once for debris from Brad Keselowski. The 2012 champion spun in Turn 4 following a green-flag stop when his right rear wheel nut came off.

Shortly after the final stage began, Tyler Reddick made contact with Josh Berry at the exit of Turn 2, causing the Wood Brothers Racing driver to spin into the inside wall and bring out the caution with 99 laps to go. The complexion of the race completely changed during the final green-flag cycle as Byron stayed on track longer than some of his competitors.

By the time he returned to the track after stopping under green with 50 laps to go, he found himself behind Reddick, Joey Logano and Christopher Bell. Ryan Blaney, who elected to pit three laps later than Byron and eight laps later than Reddick, took advantage of his long-run speed and chased down Reddick. Unfortunately for Blaney, a second spin from Larson, who returned to the track in Stage 2 after his team made repairs in the garage area, sent the race into an overtime finish and forced each of the teams to make one last stop for tires.

NASCAR Cup Series: Who won the Goodyear 400 at Darlington?

Thanks to a quick pit stop that gained him two positions and an excellent restart, Hamlin pulled away and held off Byron by 0.5 seconds to go back-to-back and score his 56th career Cup Series win, passing NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace for 11th on the all-time wins list. It is Hamlin's fifth win at Darlington and the first time he has won back-to-back races since 2012 at Bristol and Atlanta.

Full Goodyear 400 finishing order and points results

The NASCAR Cup Series will shift its focus to half-mile Bristol Motor Speedway for the running of the Food City 500 on Sunday, April 13 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Hamlin is the defending race winner.