It came down to calculators and fumes. And while the rest of the field tried to wring every last drop of fuel from their tanks, Denny Hamlin managed to coax his Toyota to the finish line like a man trying to sneak home past curfew. The result? His third win of the season—and possibly his last full night of sleep for a while.
Because while Hamlin was fending off fuel-starved foes at 200 miles per hour, he was also on baby watch. Yes, the three-time Daytona 500 winner is expecting his third child—his first boy—any moment now. If winning a race while mentally preparing for diaper duty doesn’t scream “elite athlete,” I don’t know what does.
The final laps at Michigan International Speedway turned into a good old-fashioned fuel mileage thriller—the kind that separates the brave from the merely fast. William Byron, who had led a race-high 98 laps and snagged Stage 2, looked ready to cruise to victory… until his Chevy coughed, sputtered, and died a lap from glory. He coasted pitward like a man who had just remembered he left the oven on.
Hamlin pounced.
Chris Buescher charged up to second, Ty Gibbs took third, while Bubba Wallace and Kyle Larson rounded out a top five that felt more like a fuel economy leaderboard than a race result.
And if the finish wasn’t dramatic enough, the other 196 laps were a symphony of chaos. Restarts were like a hurricane hitting a trailer park—leaders formed the eye, serene and surgical, while the rest of the field tore into each other three- and four-wide like it was Talladega on a bender.
Take Lap 67, for instance: fresh off a Noah Gragson–John Hunter Nemechek tango, the field reset. Enter: Cole Custer, who got a tap from Austin Cindric and promptly cannoned into Alex Bowman’s Chevy, sending it headlong into the outside wall. Bowman—who has more injury history than Evil Knievel—climbed out on his own, looking none the worse for wear. Lucky for him, because his season has been anything but.
Buescher, representing the once-mighty Roush-Fenway-Keselowski camp (remember when they owned Michigan?), snatched the lead early and claimed Stage 1. Byron took control not long after, while last week’s winner Ryan Blaney had a go of it until Lap 108, when his Ford snapped loose in Turn 3 and performed a solo pirouette toward pit road. By the time the spinning stopped, Blaney was several laps down and out of contention.
Stage 2 ended with Cindric gamely trying to hold off Byron on worn tires. He nearly pulled it off, but Byron slipped by at the last moment to snag the stage win. Behind them, Carson Hocevar, Tyler Reddick, and Ross Chastain did their best impression of rush-hour traffic, going three-wide until Hocevar emerged in third.
The strategy part of the program began in earnest on Lap 146 when Todd Gilliland lost a left-rear tire and found himself stuck in the grass. NASCAR ran extra caution laps to clean it up, and suddenly everyone was guessing—fuel mileage math, tire falloff, and exactly how brave their crew chiefs were feeling.
Zane Smith got out first during pit stops thanks to a cheeky two-tire call, leading the field back to green with 48 laps to go. For a moment, it looked like we might get a Cinderella story. Then Hocevar blew by, then Byron, and Smith was shuffled back into reality.
From there, it turned into chess at 200 mph.
Hocevar was told he was four laps short with 26 to go. Byron, Larson, and Gibbs were all given similar bad news. Only one man in the top five—Hamlin—was told he might just have enough to finish. Just enough.
“He kept telling me I was good,” Hamlin said. “I knew I was going to have to go 100% to get around everybody. Just worked them one by one. Once I got to the lead, that’s when I started saving.”
Hocevar, racing in front of his home crowd, saw his hopes vanish with 19 to go thanks to a left-rear tire that expired faster than a pint of milk in August. It was the second time in three races that something out of his control ruined a strong run. Still, the kid’s got grit.
With Hocevar out, Hamlin made his move. He reeled in Byron like a fisherman eyeing dinner and Byron was a grouper. With five laps to go, they were side-by-side. Two laps later, Hamlin slipped past. Byron, now running on fumes and prayers, coasted into pit lane as the white flag waved.
“No, not really,” Hamlin said when asked if he was nervous about running out of fuel during that final duel. “I wanted to get the lead. Obviously he was doing a great job defending.”
Hamlin cruised home, not just saving fuel—but somehow keeping enough in the tank to outrun Buescher by 1.099 seconds.
“It’s fantastic,” Hamlin said. “Chris Gayle, this whole team, has done a great job. We’ve been so fast throughout the entire year. Just haven’t finished it for one reason or another. Feels good to come here to Michigan where we’ve been so close over the years… This is such a gratifying day to restart 11th or 12th, something like that, and drive to the front.”
Ross Chastain grabbed sixth, Smith hung on for seventh, and Kyle Busch, Ryan Preece, and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top ten. It was a fitting end to a race that felt more like a tactical masterclass than a demolition derby.
Next up? Mexico City. For the first time since 1998, NASCAR’s premier series heads beyond U.S. borders. Expect altitude, unknowns, and—if we’re lucky—a few more drivers pretending they’re fuel-saving Jedi Masters.
And Hamlin? Well, his next pit stop could be the maternity ward. If he navigates that delivery as well as Michigan, they’ll need to start giving out trophies in the delivery room.
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" 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, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.