Denny Hamlin holds off William Byron in OT for Darlington win

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Denny Hamlin did his occupation truthful his pit unit could bash its astir stellar halt astatine the cleanable time.

Hamlin came into the pits aft a last caution successful 3rd spot and told himself to deed each mark, past fto his guys instrumentality over.

And that's what the Joe Gibbs Racing radical did, pulling disconnected a cleanable winning infinitesimal that sent Hamlin retired with the lead. He took implicit connected the last restart and held disconnected William Byron to triumph the Goodyear 400 connected Sunday.

It was Hamlin's 56th vocation NASCAR win, his 5th astatine Darlington Raceway and his 2nd consecutive this season

"When you deliberation astir 56 wins, that's a immense deal," said Gibbs, Hamlin's longtime car owner.

Hamlin said helium hung connected passim arsenic Byron and others looked similar they mightiness propulsion retired victory. Instead, Hamlin waited retired his clip and past pounced arsenic helium broke distant during the green-white-checkered finish.

"I tin inactive bash it, I tin bash it astatine a precocious level and look guardant to winning a batch of races this year," Hamlin said.

Hamlin won for a 2nd consecutive week aft his occurrence astatine Martinsville.

Hamlin chose the extracurricular lane for a last restart and changeable retired to the pb and pulled distant from bid points person Byron and NASCAR wins person Christopher Bell.

Hamlin looked similar he'd person a beardown finish, but not a winning 1 arsenic Ryan Blaney passed Tyler Reddick for the pb with 3 laps left. But moments later, Kyle Larson spun retired forcing a last caution and the other laps.

It was past clip for Hamlin's Joe Gibbs Racing pit unit to radiance arsenic it got him retired rapidly and successful the lead.

Byron, who led the archetypal 243 laps, was 2nd with Hamlin's JGR teammate Bell successful third.

"There are 2 radical I truly emotion close now, my pit unit and Kyle Larson," Hamlin said to a circular of boos from those successful the stands.

Reddick was 4th and Blaney was fifth. The remainder of the apical 10 finishers were Chris Buescher, Ross Chastain, Chase Elliott, Ty Gibbs and Kyle Busch.

Hamlin credited the past 2 victories to his pit crew.

"The pit unit conscionable did an astonishing job," helium said. "They won it past week, they won it this week. It's each astir them."

Blaney had thought helium was wide to his first-ever Darlington triumph aft getting by Reddick late. When helium saw the caution emblem for Larson's spin, helium said helium thought, "Oh, no! I thought we had the contention won."

So did Byron, who sought was to go the archetypal NASCAR operator successful astir 25 years to pb each thigh connected the mode to victory. He got shuffled down the standings during the past circular of green-flag pit stops and could not recover.

"It was looking similar it was going to beryllium a cleanable contention and we were going to pb each lap," helium said.

But erstwhile "we mislaid control, it was excessively precocious to get backmost up there," Byron said.

Bad day

Kyle Larson, who won the Southern 500 present successful 2023, had precocious hopes for a 2nd Darlington win. But helium slid into the wrong partition coming disconnected the 2nd crook connected thigh 3 and went close to store wherever his squad worked the adjacent mates of hours to get him backmost connected track. Larson returned connected thigh 164 aft falling 161 laps disconnected the pace. Larson finished adjacent to past successful 37th.

Biffle's ride

Greg Biffle, the past NASCAR operator to triumph consecutive Cup Series victories astatine Darlington successful 2006 and 2007, drove the gait car for the Goodyear 400 connected Sunday. Biffle has had an eventful fewer months, flying rescue missions with his chopper into areas of the Southeast affected by devastating Hurricane Helene successful September.

Biffle was readying a weeklong travel to the Bahamas erstwhile his telephone started going disconnected astir radical stranded successful parts of Western North Carolina.

"I went to the hangar and the powerfulness was out," Biffle said. "We got the hangar down unfastened with the tug and got the chopper out. Once I got successful the air, I realized what had taken place."

Biffle past flew the adjacent 11 days from "sunup to sundown."

"It was incredible," Biffle said. "It was beauteous pugnacious going for the archetypal week."

Biffle won the Myers Brothers Humanitarian Award for his work.

Up next

The bid goes to Bristol connected April 13 earlier taking its accepted Easter break.