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Denny Hamlin 'took off right away' in NASCAR overtime restart

JHby: Jonathan Howard04/01/24Jondean25
Denny Hamlin Richmond Victory Lane
Mandatory Credit: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports

Last night Denny Hamlin won the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond in what many believe was a controversial restart in overtime. NASCAR fans, and even his teammate Martin Truex Jr., believe Hamlin jumped the restart to gain an advantage.

At first, it sounded like NASCAR wasn’t going to review the incident. However, Elton Sawyer confirmed that it was reviewed. Officials decided that it was not an inappropriate restart and decided to let the race finish without intervening.

In his postrace press conference, Denny Hamlin didn’t deny being quick on the restart. However, he wasn’t going to admit that he jumped it in a major way.

“Yeah, I mean, I went right at it, for sure. I did that because I saw those guys rolling to me,” Hamlin said. “The 22 was laying back. The 19 was rolling a couple miles an hour quicker than I was. I wasn’t going to let them have an advantage that my team earned on pit road.

Certainly made sure I went to my nose, got there. But I took off right away. Still, we were side by side down the water into turn one.”

These are the angles being shared online showing the onboard cameras of Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin. What do you think about it?

NASCAR is being criticized harshly for their decision last night, or lack thereof. However, I don’t think fans want them to take a hard line on these final restarts. If they were to get involved and penalize Hamlin or another driver who jumped the start, then there would be complaints about fixing the end of the race.

This was going to be controversial no matter what decision NASCAR made, in my opinion.

Denny Hamlin wins in overtime at Richmond

In the end, this race is going as a W on the official record. Denny Hamlin was patient. His car had to come to him and eventually, he was able to get into the top-5 and was running strong. This race was going to be a good result for him even if it ended in regulation.

Hamlin started to catch the leaders with tires about 10 laps fresher. Eventually, his speed was held up by the tight aero situation. Martin Truex Jr. looked like he was going to race to the finish after a dominant second half of the race. Then, chaos.

Bubba Wallace was racing Kyle Larson in the top-5 for position. Larson got a little loose, he lost speed, then Wallace got into the back of him. Two laps to go, caution comes out and changes this entire race.

Denny Hamlin was running in third at the time His pit crew earned him the lead with a stop of about 8.9 seconds on pit road. A clutch performance from the crew for sure. Then, Hamlin took over on the final restart, got physical with Truex into Turn 2 and snatched this win from his teammate.