Hamlin went ahead in the closing 12-lap shootout for a victory at Texas
Motor Speedway on Monday, holding off Jimmie Johnson at the end to win
another rain-delayed race.
Hamlin won for the second time in
three races, both victories coming in races that were postponed by rain
before being run on the first day of the week.
It was the 10th career NASCAR
Sprint Cup victory for Hamlin, who won a Monday race at Martinsville
three weeks ago, then had surgery two days after for a torn ACL in his
left knee. He ran every lap at Phoenix last week, and was still hurting
in Texas.
“I’m trying to get it straight
right now,” said Hamlin, who gingerly climbed out of the car in Victory
Lane. “I did it for the long run. Even though it was going to take some
sacrifice, I knew once I came back I was going to be stronger.”
Hamlin started 29th in his No. 11
Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and never led until that final run, set up
after a spectacular nine-car crash involving pole-sitter Tony Stewart and
Jeff Gordon, who had led a race-high 124 laps and was trying to get
back to the front.
On the first lap after a restart
with 18 laps left — following yellow-flag stops when Stewart was among
the drivers who took only two tires and Gordon took four — they ended up
three-wide with Gordon in the middle and Johnson on the inside coming
out of Turn 4.
Stewart got loose in the pack and
there was contact with Gordon, who had three-time Texas winner Carl
Edwards coming up behind and trying to follow him. Then things spun out
of control along the front stretch, though Johnson escaped that wreck
unscathed.
“Definitely my fault,” Stewart
said, taking the blame for the accident after leading five times for 74
laps.
When Gordon got out of his
mangled No. 24 Chevrolet, he walked directly to Stewart, who was only
halfway out of the car, still sitting on the door frame. Stewart put his
hand on Gordon’s shoulder and they then walked away toward the pits
talking to each other and trying to figure out what happened.
Once the track was cleaned up
and the red flag was withdrawn after nearly 21 minutes, Jeff Burton was
on the inside and Hamlin on the outside when the race restarted.
Burton, who took only two tires
on the same stop as Stewart, didn’t have enough left to challenge and
slipped all the way to 11th.
Johnson sustained damage on the
front left bumper of his car when he got loose with 94 laps left and was
hit by teammate Gordon, who is listed as the owner of the No. 48 car.
That got Johnson out of sequence
on pit stops when he had to make a stop to fix a flat tire, but the
late cautions got him back in order and he got his fifth top-three
finish of the season. He finished only 0.152 seconds behind Hamlin.
“Maybe one more lap I could have
been alongside the 11 and had a victory,” said Johnson, the four-time
defending Sprint Cup champion who has already won three times this
season.
Johnson led four times for 39
laps.
Gordon led six times and Dale
Earnhardt Jr., another Hendrick Motorsports driver, led seven times for
46 laps.
There were 29 lead changes,
tying the record for the Cup series at the 1 1/2-mile high-banked Texas
track. A dozen drivers led laps.
Kyle Busch finished third, ahead
of older brother Kurt, who won at Texas in November. Kasey Kahne, Mark
Martin, Kevin Harvick, Earnhardt, Martin Truex Jr. and Greg Biffle
rounded out the top 10.