Richmond Rundown

A race dominated by two drivers came down to a shocking finish in overtime that saw Denny Hamlin taking the checkered flag. It was Kyle Larson and Martin Truex Jr. that both led over 150 laps each before Hamlin took the lead on the last round of pit stops.

Last night's race at Richmond was one of those typical long run dominated Richmond races with few key moments throughout. The race started on NASCAR’s wet weather tires which didn’t seem to have much impact on performance before the competition caution came out on lap 30. Larson had dominated up until then and continued to after going back to the normal dry tires. The stage ended early after Josh Berry and Daniel Suarez made contact entering turn 1 which sent Suarez spinning.

Stage 2 was looking to go fully green allowing for different pit strategies between splitting the stage in half or thirds. Leader Kyle Larson went with the half strategy while 2nd place Truex decided to go with the thirds. Truex had worked his away past Larson for the lead with the expectations of pitting soon again, but a lousy caution for Kyle Busch hitting the wall in turn 2 ruined all strategy and all lead lap cars pitted which caused Larson to start in the 4th row. From this point Truex took control of the race winning stage 2.

Truex’s dominance continued in stage 3 with Larson following in 2nd. By this time Christopher Bell had worked his way up to the top 5 from starting 29th. While all of the leaders pit, Bell stayed out an extra nine laps to try to have a tire advantage later on. While he may have had a car fast enough to use this strategy to pass the leaders, he was caught speeding on pit road and had to serve a pass-through penalty. On the second round of pit stops, Denny Hamlin tried the same strategy pitting nine laps after the leaders. This strategy was working as he had netted two more spots getting him to third behind Joey Logano in 2nd, however lapped cars and dirty air were enough to stall Hamlin behind Logano and Logano behind Truex. With two laps to go Larson, who was quickly falling back, was spun by Bubba Wallace off of turn 4 bringing out the caution and leading to NASCAR overtime.

All of the leaders came down pit road under yellow and Denny Hamlin took the lead over Truex off the pits. On the restart, Denny clearly accelerates before the restart zone which Truex calls him out for over the radio which makes Truex race him hard entering turn 1, but the outside line showed to be useless as he fell back behind Logano and was racing Larson for 3rd. As Denny drove away, Truex door slammed Larson down the back stretch which was followed by Larson putting him in the wall across the finish line to secure 3rd. After the flag, Martin hit Larson some more before catching up to Hamlin and giving him a few bumps in the rear bumper to show his displeasure. After the race, NASCAR said they had reviewed the restart and despite Denny being close to jumping the restart, it was clean and Denny was the winner pending inspection, which he cleared. 

Overall, the race was not very good. Very rarely am I someone that complains about not being able to pass or not enough tire falloff, but this race is the kind that makes me admit that stuff. Denny went from being able to pass easily to stalling out behind Logano because a couple of lapped cars that were much slower being side by side. Passing was very hard to do unless the passer had significant advantage which creates a boring race. This was easily the worst race of the year and hopefully the next Richmond date will be much more entertaining. Next week is Martinsville in which we are likely going to see the same things as we did last night.