Denny Hamlin earned his 59th career win and fifth of the 2025 season at WWT Raceway, locking himself into the Round of 12.
“Yeah, it’s so big for everyone at Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing,” said Hamlin. “Progressive Toyota was great there at the end. So happy to get this victory. My dad’s not feeling well at home. Just shout-out to him. The whole family’s here.
He later added: “Man, it’s just a great victory. Love that Denny time flag, poster is pretty good. Y’all can boo me. You can either get on the bandwagon or you can get run over by it.”
Hamlin snatched the lead away with a three-wide pass on the final restart, as he and teammate Chase Briscoe split Brad Keselowski. Briscoe went on to finish second to his 44-year-old teammate, securing Joe Gibbs Racing a 1-2 finish. He is also locked into the next round, courtesy of his Southern 500 win one week ago.
Chase Elliott finished third, Ryan Blaney fourth, and Joey Logano fifth. John-Hunter Nemechek, Christopher Bell, Bubba Wallace, Chris Buescher, and Ty Gibbs filled out the remainder of the top ten.
Stage 1
At the start of the race, it was Kyle Larson who took command early from Hamlin.
Kyle Busch triggered the first caution of the race, spinning early in Stage 1. This set-up a split strategy as Hamlin led one group that stayed out, and Larson led the group that chose to pit.
On the restart, fresh tires appeared to make a real difference as Larson surged forward.
Josh Berry, who was trying to fight back from a crash at Darlington, wrecked again after contact from Elliott. This puts him in a must-win situation for Bristol next weekend.
Briscoe went on to win Stage 1, followed closely by Larson and Hamlin.
Stage 2
Briscoe and the other drivers who chose to stay out were now buried deep in the field after pitting. Unfortunately, as he tried to push forward, Briscoe got into Suarez and ending his day.
Later on, the Dillon brothers had a run-in, as Austin Dillon spun out his brother in the battle for 32nd. He was very apologetic to Ty afterward.
As the stage neared its conclusion, Blaney got spun out by Larson in a surprising incident where the #5 car entered a corner on the bottom of the track and drifted up, seemingly forever, until bumping Blaney. As it happened, Blaney was obviously agitated, and it led to a post-race conversation between the two Cup champions.
The incident set-up a one-lap dash with Wallace winning Stage 2 over Keselowski and Logano.
Stage 3
Early in the final stage, there was a caution for debris as a braking marker — really, a plastic sign held on with zip ties — fell off of the fence.
Later, Wallace’s car got stuck in gear on this restart and nearly led to a large incident as the pack checked up, but everyone got away with it.
Shane van Gisbergen then went for a spin in a caution that fell just outside the pit window. A handful of drivers, including Larson, Byron and Wallace, all chose to top off with fuel with the idea of stretching it.
The next run went on for a while, leading to green-flag pit stops. However, before the cycle could complete, Ty Dillon had a brake failure that sent him into the wall and forced the yellow flag to fly.
Brad Keselowski was the leader at the time of the yellow, and Ross Chastain was forced to take the free pass after being trapped a lap down.
The following restart was the last one, with Keselowski unable to hold back the JGR drivers.
In this article
Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics
