Sunoco Pit Move: Indy

INDIANAPOLIS -- They're back.

Those pesky little pit-stop gremlins that bedeviled Denny Hamlin earlier this season popped up again at Indianapolis on Sunday, turning what could have been a top-five performance into a disappointing 22nd-place finish.

At Bristol, it was a fuel pump issue. At Martinsville, a loose tire ruined his day. At Darlington, missing lug nuts were the culprit.

Hamlin thought he had gotten rid of his bad luck for good when he won at New Hampshire last month, thanks in part to a perfectly-executed pit stop. But it resurfaced at the most inopportune time again during the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.

There was a bit of foreshadowing on Lap 15, one lap after Jeff Green's hard crash in Turn 3. As all the cars exited pit road, Hamlin was eighth but NASCAR officials penalized him for speeding, sending him all the way back to 42nd.

However, Hamlin's car was way too good to stay that far back for long. Within 20 laps, he was up to 22nd -- and avoiding some of the melee that wiped out several contenders -- he made it back into the top 15 by Lap 53.

But the real misfortune was to come. Finally given an opportunity for a long green-flag run, Hamlin's car went to the front. As other lead-lap cars made stops, Hamlin moved up to second behind Kyle Busch when the call came for a stop on Lap 128.

Unfortunately, it was one lap too many.

Hamlin came down Indy's pit lane for service, but suddenly realized the car was out of fuel. Seconds agonizingly ticked off the clock as the engine in the No. 11 Chevrolet refused to restart at that point. As the leader flew past, Hamlin finally got the car running again, but found himself one lap down.

"We just were a little short on fuel," Hamlin admitted. "We didn't think we were stretching it. Once we ran out I just could not get the thing very far.

"That pretty much ended our day. I messed up at the beginning of the race and got us on pit road but we made that back up. It's just frustrating that we don't have a shot here at Indy, something always happens."

Hamlin wouldn't have the opportunity to get that lap back, although he showed he was equal to the class of the field during the final laps, as he ran directly behind teammate and eventual winner Tony Stewart and runner-up Juan Montoya .

"I felt like at the end there I could run with the 29 and 20," Hamlin said. "On the short go they took off but I felt like I could come right back to 'em and finally I decided to get out of the race because I was affecting it.

"It's just a situation where things didn't fall our way, the stars didn't align for us today and unfortunately it ended up in a bad position for us."

Hamlin remains second in the standings, 371 points behind Jeff Gordon but lamented about giving another good finish away.

"It's real disappointing," Hamlin said. "We're in a comfortable position where we were three weeks ago, we just can't keep doing stuff like this and it's not all on Mike [Ford] and those guys' fault.

"For some reason we just didn't pick up the fuel that we had in month's past. We should have played it a little more conservative there. You know, we preach about being more aggressive but we didn't need to stretch it right there."