By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service
Denny Hamlin essentially called his shot this week, saying on his popular weekly podcast that he absolutely expected to win Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Wurth 400 at Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway.
And the veteran backed it up – holding off championship leader Kyle Larson by a slight .256-second to claim his third win of the season and 54th of his career – tying the legend Lee Petty on the all-time wins list.
Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota took the lead from Larson during a late race pit stop cycle, beating him off pit road then leading the final 72 laps. He got the jump on Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet on both of the final two restarts then managed an advantage that was more than 2-seconds at one point with Larson closing on him.
Larson got within two-tenths of a second of Hamlin as they negotiated traffic on the famous one-mile Dover track in the closing laps but was unable to get close enough to attempt a pass.
“You’d better win, if you’re going to open your mouth, that’s for sure,” Hamlin said of his bold prediction to win.
Hamlin, 43, immediately gave credit to his No. 11 JGR team.
“Just a great team, they just did a great job,” said Hamlin, who led a race best 136 of the 400 laps.
“All the guys on the wall right here, they made it happen,” he said motioning to his cheering team on pit wall. Thank you to them and to [crew chief] Chris Gabehart. The whole team just gave me a great car.
“I think the key moment, really was Kyle did an excellent job executing during the green flag pit cycle ad then we were able to get the lead there on that restart, then got the caution that allowed us to control the restart. That was really the key moment for us and certainly feels good winning here at Dover.”
Larson was understandably disappointed standing next to his car after the race and explained that contact between his car and the No. 19 car on a late race restart hurt his chances of being able to get going properly and challenge Hamlin.
“I knew when I got within three car-lengths, he was going to start moving around,” said Larson, who led 39 laps. “I couldn’t really do anything. I was trying all sorts of different angles and speeds, all that. Nothing could generate enough speed to get close enough I guess, to do anything. That was a bummer.
“A great day for our HendrickCars.com Chevy team. Started 21st, drove up to sixth in…
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