Hamlin wins!

A few bright orange Manchester High School signs waved high in the air as hometown racer, Denny Hamlin, lifted a huge monkey off his back in Saturday night’s Chevy Rock and Roll 400. Hamlin led the most laps and finally topped the leading off with a win.

Hamlin had led over 600 laps at Richmond International Raceway, but bad luck had always been on his side until Saturday night. He led a total of 299 laps before racing to the flag stand to grab the coveted checkered. First he had to go through Jeff Gordon though.

“The 24 was really good there at the beginning, and we had some good racing with him, just kind of sized him up to see what he had there towards the end,” Hamlin said.

Hamlin took the lead in lap two, but Gordon chipped away and got around him in the front stretch on lap 65. Gordon opened a big lead by lap 102, but caught up to lapped traffic. Debris brought out the caution flags in lap 108 and a good pit stop put Hamlin on Gordon’s bumper.

The two raced side by side until lap 145 when he went low in turn two, got around Gordon and made it stick to get back on the top on the leader board. Hamlin kept the lead after pitting in the sixth caution. His crew may have literally given him the shove he needed. The front end guys gave him a huge push on the take-off, and he beat Gordon off the pits by a hair. His crew proved consistently fast all night.

“We had good pit stops and didn’t make any mistakes, so we just kind of paced ourselves from the beginning,” Hamlin said.

Gordon was taken out of the running on the restart after the eighth caution. Clint Bowyer tried to make a move down low, nudged Gordon in the left rear and sent him spinning. Gordon held on to the car but lost position. Bowyer, then finally, Kurt Busch tried to get to him, but Hamlin had the best car on the track and maintained the lead.

Hamlin also got a boost on restarts. In Friday’s Nationwide race, he had some of the fastest restarts on the track. He consistently got off the line again Saturday. From the first green flag where he jumped from third to second almost immediately to late caution starts, he was able to use cautions to widen his lead.

“Some of those guys were really putting the pressure on us early, and it kind of was tough to get away, especially there at the end,” Hamlin said. “The way I run this race track, I’m really easy on corner entry and, you know, on a restart, if you’ve got a guy right behind you, you can’t be easy entry because the guy will stick it in there. Kurt did a good job of slowing us up by being behind us, so he did the right things there.”

Hamlin moves into the Chase in fourth with 5,020 points.

The other story of the night went to Brian Vickers and Kyle Busch. Within one or two points of each other, both drivers were on the cusp of making the Chase. The two traded 12th position on the live points board all night and Vickers finally moved into the last playoff spot in lap 337 when he passed Kyle Busch for the fifth running spot. Kyle Busch complained of problems in the car all night and dropped to seventh. He eventually moved up to fifth but needed Vickers to finish out of the top 10. Vickers finished seventh and goes into the Chase eighth in points with 5,010. Kyle Busch was just eight points from that final Chase spot.

In other track happenings, Carl Edwards did little to stop the questions about his broken foot and the effect it will have on his season. Edwards won Friday night but had trouble from the start in the Sprint Cup race including moving in the wrong direction.

The announcer said “Gentlemen start your engines,” and Edwards was off and moving – backwards. He nearly rolled into 11th place starter, Reed Sorenson. Edwards had trouble Friday in the garage trying to switch pedal feet. No word if that was the cause of the roll back on Saturday though. Edwards finished 15th and goes into the Chase ninth in points.

The 12 Chase contenders are as follows: Mark Martin, Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson, Hamlin, Kasey Kahne, Gordon, Kurt Busch, Vickers, Edwards, Ryan Newman, Juan Pablo Montoya and Greg Biffle.