LONG POND, Pa. — Denny Hamlin had enough fuel in the No. 11 Toyota to pull away off the final restart in an overtime finish Sunday for his fifth victory at Pocono Raceway.
Hamlin raced to his third victory of the season and 34th overall in the NASCAR Cup Series, giving Joe Gibbs Racing its 11th win in 21 races this season.
Hamlin held off teammates Erik Jones and Martin Truex Jr. as he bounced back after victory eluded him last week at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
With the leaders running low on fuel, Hamlin had enough left to get a good jump off two late restarts.
“I was really worried,” Hamlin said. “We just did a great job with the car.”
Hamlin seemingly had the race won in regulation when he took the lead off a restart with four laps to go after Kurt Busch slammed into the wall to bring out another caution. Hamlin, Jones and Truex made it a 1-2-3 running order for JGR as the race headed into overtime. That’s the way it shook out after three extra laps.
Hamlin swept Pocono as a rookie in 2006 and won two straight races over the 2009 and 2010 seasons, but often struggled in recent seasons to seriously compete for a win on the tri-oval track.
On Sunday, the Daytona 500 winner had the right combination and figured out how to conserve his gas to the very end.
“We’re running our best right now,” Hamlin said. “There’s no doubt about it.”
William Bryon was fourth, and Kyle Larson finished fifth.
Seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson still hasn’t won a race since June 4, 2017, at Dover, but he did win the second stage Sunday. It was his first stage win this season, and only his second in the three seasons since NASCAR implemented the manufactured breaks.
Johnson finished 15th.
Kyle Busch won the first stage.
Johnson, Austin Dillon, William Byron, Michael McDowell, Ryan Blaney, Chris Buescher, Corey LaJoie, Ross Chastain and Reed Sorenson all failed prerace inspection and started at the back of the field.
Fort Kent’s Austin Theriault, in his second Cup Series race, was 34th in the 38-car field.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.