Hamlin overcomes late trip to pits to win at Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Denny Hamlin plowed through traffic after a green-white-checkered-flag restart Monday to post his second consecutive victory at Martinsville Speedway, wresting the title "Mr. Martinsville" -- at least temporarily -- from Jimmie Johnson, who rode a nondescript ninth-place finish to the Sprint Cup points lead.

On fresh tires, thanks to a pit stop under caution on Lap 493, Hamlin powered past Ryan Newman, Matt Kenseth and Jeff Gordon on Lap 507 of 508 after Kenseth and Gordon traded shots earlier on the same lap.

Martinsville

Results

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Denny Hamlin	Toyota
2.	Joey Logano	Toyota
3.	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet
4.	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet
5.	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota

• Results | Laps | Videos | Photos

Sprint Cup Series

Standings

Pos.	+/-	Driver	Behind
1.	+2	Jimmie Johnson	- --
2.	+2	Greg Biffle	-14
3.	-1	Matt Kenseth	-16
4.	-3	Kevin Harvick	-61
5.	+2	Jeff Burton	-113

• Standings | Season Results

"I had to bully my way through there toward the end, but everybody was just running into everyone," Hamlin said. "I flattened my tires with [Matt] Kenseth going down the backstretch and just somehow made it work."

Hamlin cleared Gordon's Chevrolet through Turns 3 and 4 and finished the race on a cut tire, .670 seconds ahead of teammate Joey Logano, who weaved his way through the melee to give Joe Gibbs Racing a 1-2 finish at the .526-mile short track.

"Whose house is this?" Hamlin radioed after taking the checkered flag.

"Denny Hamlin's house," spotter Curtis Markham answered.

Gordon finished third after leading the field to the Lap 507 restart. Newman ran fourth and Martin Truex Jr. fifth.

The race was delayed by one day because of rain. So was Hamlin's surgery, originally scheduled for Monday, to repair a torn ACL in his left knee, the result of a pickup basketball injury two months ago.

Though Hamlin is eager to get the operation behind him, he savored Monday's victory, the ninth of his career.

"This is probably the most gratifying win I've had, simply because we came through adversity so many times, whether it be because of pit road [dropping the jack too soon on an early pit stop] or that dash at the end," Hamlin said. "We just flat out drove through 'em at the end and got the win. I'm not sure we've gotten a win like this before."

All day, the race shaped up as a two-car battle between Hamlin and Jeff Burton, with the fellow Virginians leading almost all of the final 300 laps.

A late call for four tires put that victory in jeopardy. Hamlin, who led a race-high 172 laps, had a lead of 2.7 seconds when Burton blew a tire on Lap 491 and caused the 12th caution of the race. Hamlin and teammate Kyle Busch, who was running second, came to the pits for tires, handing the lead to Gordon.

Hamlin had led for 89 consecutive laps until heading for pit road.

But with Hamlin on four fresh tires and everyone else having changed theirs about 75 laps earlier, they had no defense when Hamlin found openings and plowed his car through them.

Hamlin restarted ninth on Lap 497 and quickly made his way toward the front, knocking off two cars with a harrowing three-wide pass in Turn 1. Hamlin was fourth when Busch spun in Turn 3 after contact with Paul Menard's Ford on Lap 499 and brought out the final caution, with Gordon tantalizingly close to the start/finish line and his first victory since April 2009 at Texas.

If NASCAR calls a caution after the leader takes the white flag -- which signals the final lap -- the field is frozen as it runs. Gordon was within 30 yards of the flag when the caution flew for Busch's wreck.

"We were a hundred feet away from getting that white flag, getting the victory," Gordon said. "So that's frustrating. But I shouldn't be too upset. We were a third-place car before that, and we finished third."

Gordon has won seven times at Martinsville, the most among active drivers, but had not been in contention to win in the second half of the race until he was handed the lead.

"I'm not exactly sure what happened on that last restart. I got an OK restart," Gordon said. "Spun the tires a little bit, got going. I looked at my mirror, [and the] 17 [Kenseth] was pretty far behind me. ... Next thing I know, I got nailed. I don't know who got into me. I thought it was the 17. If it wasn't, I apologize to him. I made sure he didn't win the race down the straightaway."

In fact, after Kenseth bumped Gordon's Chevrolet in the corner, Gordon rubbed Kenseth's Ford down the backstretch and sent him high into Turn 3. Kenseth finished 18th after most of the lead-lap cars streamed past him.

The day was a long one for Kevin Harvick, who started the day as the points leader, led the first 44 laps after starting on the pole and was running in the top five when something broke on his car and he headed to the garage. When he returned, he was 34 laps behind.

Johnson has a 14-point lead over Greg Biffle after six races. Kenseth is third, 16 back.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related:
• Knee surgery turns into celebration for Hamlin
• Gordon, Kenseth out of sorts with one another
• Notes: Biffle ends M'ville woes with top-10 finish