DOVER, Del. (AP) — Denny Hamlin balked when a surfboard he was asked to sign for charity was placed on the floor. At his age, Hamlin cracked, he might not be able to get back up. The 44-year-old driver had similar aging concerns a night earlier when the picture on the TV he watched as he started to doze off seemed a bit fuzzy.
“I’m not losing my eyesight am I?” Hamlin said.
Hamlin’s vision was on point Sunday at Dover — his sights set firmly on victory lane.
Hamlin can eliminate distractions and succeed like few drivers in the series can can do: He shook off a setback in his court battle with NASCAR, shrugged off old tire concerns once he took a late lead ahead of a rain delay, and survived a late charge from his teammate to go back-to-back at Dover Motor Speedway for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver’s series-best fourth victory of the season.
“I just love that I’m able to still do it at a high level,” Hamlin said. “Every morning when I wake up, I just hope I still got what I had yesterday.”
Hamlin won in the No. 11 Toyota for the second straight time at Dover to add to wins this season at Martinsville, Darlington and Michigan.
Hamlin has 58 NASCAR Cup Series victories, leaving him two short of Kevin Harvick for 10th on the career list. The veteran Virginia driver might hit that mark this season as he chases his first career Cup championship.
Hamlin is on NASCAR’s short list of greatest drivers to never win a championship. He won’t let the void on an otherwise stellar resume full of Hall of Fame credentials define how he feels about his career.
Hamlin says, it’s trophies, not titles, not he celebrates the most
“If we do, we do. If we don’t, we don’t,” Hamlin said. “I care about wins. I want more trophies, more trophies, more trophies. When I’m done, I want to be in the list of that top-10 all-time winners. That will mean more than any other accomplishment.”
Hamlin took the checkered flag days after he suffered a setback in court with his own 23XI Racing team’s federal antitrust suit against NASCAR.
On Thursday, a federal judge rejected a request from 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports to continue racing with charters while they battle NASCAR in court, meaning their six cars will race as open entries this weekend at Dover, next week at Indianapolis and perhaps longer than that in a move the teams say would put them at risk of going out of business.
Hamlin vowed this weekend “all will be exposed” if the case goes to its scheduled Dec. 1 trial date.
The courtroom drama hasn’t affected Hamlin’s performance on the track. Hamlin held off JGR teammate Chase Briscoe for the victory. Hendrick Motorsports drivers took the next two spots, with Alex Bowman third and Kyle Larson fourth.
“I thought I did everything I needed to,” Briscoe said. “I thought I had him there for a second. I wish the Camry, the back, was about 3 inches shorter. I was so close to clearing him. I just couldn’t do it. Obviously, racing a teammate, I wanted to make sure at least a JGR car won.”
Hamlin held off Kyle Larson down the stretch last season to earn the second of his three career wins at the Monster Mile.
The first July Cup race at Dover since 1969 started with steamy weather and drivers battled the conditions inside the car during a relatively clean race until rain fell late and red-flagged the race with 14 laps left. Hamlin said the during the break changed his firesuit — temperatures inside the car soared to 140 degrees, and sweat kept dripping inside his visor.
He also returned to the car after the 56-minute delay with old tires. Hamlin — who was the betting favorite to win, per BETMGM Sportsbook —- had enough to win on cool tires at Dover and park the Toyota in victory lane.
There was never any real consideration to pit with the lead for fresh tires.
“We need wins,” crew chief Chris Gayle said. “How can we manufacture some way to give ourselves more opportunity for that to happen? Might not pan out, but we definitely weren’t going to do it doing the same thing as everybody else. That was our train of thought there and thankfully it worked out and we held on.”
He became the 19th Cup driver to win three times at Dover and the 13th driver to win consecutive races on the mile concrete track.
“I just studied some of the greats here,” Hamlin said. “I was very fortunate to have Martin Truex as a teammate. Jimmie Johnson, watching him win (11) times here. You learn from the greats and you change your game to match it, you have success like this.”
In-season challenge
The Tys have it in NASCAR.
It’s Ty Gibbs vs. Ty Dillon next week at Indianapolis to decide the first winner in NASCAR’s $1 million mid-season tournament.
NASCAR seeded 32 drivers for the first In-season Challenge, a five-race, bracket-style tournament that mirrors the NCAA basketball tournaments.
Both drivers are winless and Dillon made it as the No. 32 seed. Gibbs finished fifth Sunday for JGR.
John Hunter Nemechek and Tyler Reddick were eliminated.
Logano’s 600th
Joey Logano finished 14th for Team Penske in his 600th career start.
Logano has made every start since the 2009, 597 straight, putting him within striking distance of Jeff Gordon’s Cup record of 797 straight starts.
Logano was 35 years, 1 month, 26 days old when he hits No. 600 on Sunday, making him the youngest driver to reach that milestone. He topped seven-time NASCAR champion and Hall of Famer Richard Petty by six months.
Petty is the only driver to have won his 600th start.
Up next
It’s off to Indianapolis Motor Speedway where Kyle Larson won last season on the oval after a four-year break on the road course.
___
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
