The only things that seemed capable of outrunning Denny Hamlin at Martinsville on Sunday were luck… and Chase Elliott. Hamlin did everything else right. He led a race-high 292 laps, swept both stages, and generally treated the field like it was a minor inconvenience. But in the closing laps, a couple of ill-timed cautions—and some sharp pit strategy from Elliott—snatched the trophy right out of his hands.
Elliott’s move came during the final round of green-flag stops on lap 261, diving to pit road early in a calculated gamble. For a brief, shining moment, it worked to perfection. Elliott cycled to the lead for the first time, hoping—praying, really—for a caution to freeze the field. It didn’t come right away, but he still found himself out front for 15 laps once the stops played out, with Shane van Gisbergen tucked in behind and Hamlin lurking in third like a man who knew he’d be back.
And he was. By lap 300, Hamlin had reclaimed control—just in time for chaos to tap him on the shoulder.
Ty Dillon’s brake rotor exploded in spectacular fashion, and while he limped to pit road, NASCAR initially kept things green. Then someone spotted debris on the track, and out came the caution on lap 312—just three laps after Hamlin had retaken the lead. Timing, as they say, is everything.
That yellow didn’t hand Elliott the lead outright, but it did something arguably more dangerous: it put him on equal footing with Hamlin on tires. After another round of stops, Elliott lined up second, just behind Hamlin and Ross Chastain, who stayed out on worn rubber hoping to roll a pair of snake eyes and call it strategy.
The restart? Predictably calm—if your definition of calm includes a bit of automotive revenge. Bubba Wallace, evidently done negotiating, used his front bumper to express his feelings to Carson Hocevar in Turn 3. Hocevar spun, Zane Smith got collected, and Wallace’s day ended in a heap of twisted metal and regret. Hocevar, somehow, carried on.
For Chastain, it was briefly divine intervention. For Hamlin, it was a nightmare. A missed shift on the restart dropped him behind Elliott, and from that moment on, the script flipped.
Elliott grabbed the lead on the restart and didn’t let go. The final 69 laps belonged entirely to NASCAR’s most popular driver, who held Hamlin at bay and crossed the line .565 seconds ahead—close enough to feel tense, far enough to feel decisive.
“We took a gamble,” Elliott said, seemingly still trying to believe what had just happened. “We were going to two-stop that last stage. I honestly think it was going to work out good for us either way. Just so proud of them. Man, they put up with a lot (smiling). They got to put up with me all the time. I just appreciate them for sticking with me.”
Behind them, Joey Logano salvaged something resembling dignity with a third-place finish after his Darlington troubles. Ty Gibbs quietly put together a solid run in fourth, with William Byron rounding out the top five.
“Nice to have a good rebound, solid car,” Logano said wearing his trademark smile. “Our car honestly, if we were able to get to the lead, I don’t know if the 9 was any better than us. He just got the clean air at the right time. If we were able to do that, we could have been in that position as well.”
Earlier, Hamlin’s only real nuisance came in the form of lapped traffic. After starting from the pole, by lap 38, he was already carving through the backmarkers, only to get momentarily bottled up in a mess that resembled rush hour on the 405. That allowed Byron to sneak away with a few laps led—briefly. Hamlin restored order soon enough, leading 74 of the 80 laps in Stage 1.
That stage ended under caution when Hamlin, perhaps channeling a bit of that earlier traffic frustration, nudged Hocevar while the youngster was fighting to stay on the lead lap. The contact triggered a chain reaction that ended with Cody Ware spinning and the yellow flag flying.
Stage 2 offered a brief interruption early when Noah Gragson was sent spinning on lap 106, but otherwise it was more of the same: Hamlin in command, methodically putting cars a lap—and then two laps—down. By the time the stage ended, he’d swept both stages for the ninth time in his career.
And yet, somehow, none of that came with a trophy.
“(Elliott) did a good job to control the pace there,” Hamlin admitted. “Just really came from that bad restart I had beside the one. Not much really I could have done there. Felt like we gave it our all.”
Instead, Elliott’s win in the seventh race of the season snapped Chevrolet’s season long drought and marked the latest first victory of the year for Hendrick Motorsports who hadn’t gone winless this deep into year since 2019.
“Yeah, man, it’s really cool when this stuff works out,” Elliott said. “To win these races is so tough. Just really grateful for the opportunity, as always. I never take it for granted. Trust me, this is a dream come true for me.”
Now the series takes a breather before heading to Bristol Motor Speedway on April 12, where Kyle Larson returns as the defending winner—and where, if this race proved anything, dominance means absolutely nothing if luck decides to take the day off.
RACE RESULTS
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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