A tremendous effort by Denny Hamlin's crew, plus some good fortune, resulted in a great comeback for the No. 11 Chevrolet. Credit: Autostock

Sunoco Pit Move: Pocono

It is not a stretch to say that Denny Hamlin's crew pulled off one of the more amazing feats of the year on Sunday.

After Hamlin blew a tire and spun through the grass on Lap 51, his team had to spend mountains of time on pit road to repair damage that would have sent some teams behind the wall.

Pit MoveDenny Hamlin blows a tire but his pit crew gets the job done Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

Fortunately, there were three things that were in Hamlin's favor, and all three were a major reason Hamlin was able to secure his first Nextel Cup victory.

The repairs were extensive, and crew chief Mike Ford didn't even have time to log the number of times Hamlin had to stop on pit road.

"I'm guessing [it took] maybe seven or eight just to repair the car on top of all the normal tire stops," Ford said. "I lost count. I didn't write it down -- they were happening so fast. We were fortunate we could get it repaired."

The blown tire caused heavy damage to the battery compartment of the car, and the team used several stops repairing the left rear, where the batteries are located. After that, the team had to work on sealing up the crush panels.

Ford estimated that the team repaired 50 percent of the damage while on pit road.

"Every time we came back down pit road we had more to do," Ford said. "Really, we still had more to do than we could get to."

Pit Story of the Race, Part 2

Carl Edwards easily had a car that could have been a factor in the end, but a bizarre pit stop error cost him a chance to compete with Denny Hamlin.

Carl Edwards spent more than a minute on pit road when his car slipped off the jack. Credit: Autostock

Edwards, the defending Pocono 500 champion, had driven from 40th to the lead when he came in for a green-flag stop on Lap 97. But his No. 99 Ford fell off the jack, and the team couldn't get the car re-raised in time for Edwards to remain on the lead lap.

Edwards wound up 25th and lost crucial ground in his bid to make the Chase for the Nextel Cup for the second straight year. He is 122 points behind 10th-place Kyle Busch.

Crew chief Wally Brown explained what went wrong on the stop.

"I've seen the jack slip out before, but it slipped out and nothing on the jack caught," Brown said. "Usually the jack will catch it a little bit. They couldn't get anything underneath the car to jack it up. We were in rough shape there."

Vickers: 'It certainly didn't help'

During the same round of stops that doomed Edwards, front-runner Brian Vickers was busted speeding exiting the pits.

Brian Vickers was caught for speeding on pit road. Credit: Autostock

Although Vickers rallied to finish fourth, the penalty undoubtedly cost him a shot to win, because the penalty knocked him all the way back to 31st position.

Vickers said that he knew he was speeding and merely did so because he heard his spotter telling him to get off pit road as quickly as possible.

"Coming to the end of pit road, my spotter was like, 'Go, go, go' and my reaction, you know, you hear that voice in your head and you just hit the gas and it cost us the speeding penalty," Vickers said. "But I want to go on record and say that is still my responsibility."

During the same round of green-flag stops, Jimmie Johnson was also tagged for speeding, although he bounced back and finished 10th.

Quotable

"We didn't come in for tires on that last caution, so we really didn't know if we could maintain our position on that final run. We were seventh on the final restart and ended up 11th so that wasn't too bad considering all the cars that did stop for tires." -- Ryan Newman, who stayed out with eight laps to go