Take 5: Gander RV 400 at Pocono

LONG POND, Pa. – The Gander RV 400 delivered five-wide action off restarts, different strategy plays and the potential for a fuel-mileage finish several late cautions took out of play. In the end, Denny Hamlin made the trip to Victory Lane, outlasting his teammates in a NASCAR Overtime finish.

So, what did we learn from the late July trip to Pocono? Here are five quick takeaways from the race.

As easy as 1-2-3: For the second time this season, Joe Gibbs Racing placed three of its drivers as the top-three finishers in a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race -- the first occurred in the season-opening Daytona 500. Denny Hamlin won, Erik Jones finished second and Martin Truex Jr. finished third. Defending race winner Kyle Busch led 56 laps and won a stage, but a different strategy led to him finishing in ninth.

Pocono "is obviously good for JGR. We ran 1-2-3 (Sunday) and we probably should have run 1-2-3-4 with Kyle had he not had the strategy mix-up (compared to the others)," Jones said after his third straight top-three finish of the season.

Playoff picture: Sunday’s race saw some playoff battles experience movement. Besides Denny Hamlin racking up five playoff points with the win, Joey Logano extended his lead to six points in the fight for the regular-season championship and the 15 playoff points that come with it. Top-five finishers and playoff hopefuls Erik Jones (second), William Byron (fourth) and Kyle Larson (fifth) all gained something on the cutline. As for the first driver outside the cutline -- a certain seven-time champion -- Jimmie Johnson notched his first stage win of the season and inched a little closer to the 16-driver field, as he now sits 12 points off the cutline.

What’s up with Chase? Chase Elliott's summer swoon continued at Pocono Raceway, where he wrecked his primary car in opening practice and then was involved in a single-car wreck with his backup vehicle on Lap 84 of the Gander RV 400. The last-place finish extended his tally of finishes outside the top 10 to seven straight races -- a stretch that has seen him exit three races early and finish 20th-or-worse five times. He has also dropped from third to eighth in points during that time.

"It’s been a rough month, little over a month now," Elliott said. "It’s just an unfortunate rough patch. Hopefully we can get past it."

Returning to the place of his first Cup win for the next race -- Watkins Glen International -- should be a welcome site for the driver.

Poco-YES for Hemric
: Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender Daniel Hemric scored his second top-10 finish of the 2019 season with a seventh-place showing at Pocono Raceway. The 28-year-old steadily worked his way up the field from a 17th-place starting spot. The driver of the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet hopes to see more results like this in the second half of the season, as he makes his return to tracks during his freshman campaign.

"You have to have weekends like this," Hemric said. "These are the kind of weekends that we are expected to have as a group. We were hoping to have a couple of these weekends by this point of the year, but beggars can’t be choosers. We are going to take what we have, be thankful for it and try to continue to get better."

Tempers at the Triangle: 
Kurt Busch and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. got together late in the Gander RV 400 with two incidents within five seconds of each other on the backstretch. Stenhouse came in strong on the high side but had nowhere to go with Busch there, and the No. 1 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet got into the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford, pushing Stenhouse’s car into the wall. The two-time Cup winner responded by turning the 2004 champion in the left rear, while collecting Michael McDowell as an innocent bystander.

Then, on pit road after the race, Daniel Suarez and Bubba Wallace had an animated discussion Suarez downplayed as "just hard racing." Earlier in the race, Suarez ran into Ryan Blaney at the Tunnel Turn.