Denny Hamlin muscled his way through chaos, cautions, and just enough rain to ruin a picnic to win Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover — his third career victory at the Monster Mile and arguably his most hard-earned.
After a late crash, a rain delay, and two overtime restarts that could’ve gone sideways in about twelve different ways, Hamlin clung to the lead like it was a winning lottery ticket. He held off a hard-charging Chase Briscoe, Alex Bowman, and Kyle Larson in a no-tire, no-nonsense final dash that saw Christopher Bell spin himself silly and half the field gamble like it was Daytona.
Hamlin admitted that he did it the hard way.
“Well, things are going pretty well there before the rain,” Hamlin said. “Then obviously had to endure a few restarts there…But yeah, it was tough. Those guys gave me a run for it, no doubt about it.”
It was also his second consecutive win at the 1-mile concrete oval.
“Winning here in Dover is super special to me,” he said. “This is a place I’ve not been very good at the first half of my career. Having a back-to-back here over the last few years is amazing.”
For the first part of the race, it seemed the only thing that could beat Chase Elliott was… Chase Elliott.
Thanks to a Saturday rainout, Elliott inherited the pole and proceeded to treat the opening laps like a solo test session, leading the first 171 laps and cruising to a Stage 1 win — his first of the season. For all intents and purposes, it looked like it would be one of those days — a Georgia boy on a dry track, armed with clean air and a fast Chevy, simply driving off into the horizon.
He led early in Stage 2 and maintained control until the green flag pit cycle began on lap 184. One lap later, Elliott dove in, hit his marks… and then the car fell off the jack. Literally. His day didn’t come undone because of speed or strategy — it came undone because the car thunked to the ground like a sack of bricks. That hiccup handed the lead to Bell, and by the time everything cycled through, Elliott had slipped to fifth.
Fortunately for Elliott, pit stall No. 1 can cover a multitude of sins. He finished Stage 2 in fourth but managed to slide out just behind Bell, who led the field off pit road. It would turn out to be a fortunate bit of timing — for Elliott, at least.
Fast, Furious, and Facing Backwards: Bell’s Bizarre Dover Day
On the restart to begin the final stage, Elliott lined up beside Bell. They made it to Turn 3 — but Bell, on the high side, got loose and went for a solo spin. The caution flew for the first on-track incident of the day, and Elliott once again inherited the lead without needing to break a sweat.
Once back in clean air, Elliott did what Elliott does — he built a lead of over three seconds, looking every bit like a driver who’d brushed off the earlier pit blunder. But with a pit stop still looming, a new threat arrived: a rogue pop-up rain shower, the kind that always seems to show up in NASCAR when drama is just starting to simmer.
With just over 80 laps to go, the final scheduled stops started under green. On lap 326, Elliott led Hamlin in for service — this time, the No. 9 crew nailed it. But before Bell could get his stop in, the rain crept closer. NASCAR threw the caution just as the sprinkles became something more, and Bell — who hadn’t yet pitted — found himself leading, followed by Austin Dillon and then Elliott.
Bell took full advantage, pitting under caution alongside Dillon, Elliott (who took two tires), and a few others. Hamlin, meanwhile, rolled the dice and stayed out — now leading on old tires, hoping the track would dry and luck would stick.
When the green dropped with 57 to go, Hamlin held firm against Bell, while Elliott and Dillon fought like it was last call at a Georgia Waffle House. Elliott finally wrangled third on lap 350, while the rain cloud refused to leave, menacing Turn 2 like an over-served party guest who wouldn’t take a hint.
With under 50 laps remaining, the race had turned into a four-way chess match: Joe Gibbs Racing’s Hamlin and Bell out front, Hendrick Motorsports’ Elliott and Larson stalking behind. With 25 to go, Hamlin’s lead hovered at just half a second, the tension thick enough to cut with a tire wrench.
Then it all came unglued with 17 laps left. Ross Chastain, proving once again that walls do not move, slapped the backstretch hard enough to bring out the caution. As the field slowed, the sprinkles turned serious.
With 14 to go, the red flag waved, and the field was brought to a halt. And so began the waiting — for the rain to clear, for decisions to be made, and for someone — anyone — to blink first.
It turned out the sun would be the first. Not even ten minutes after the field stopped, the clouds peeled back like curtains at a bad school play, and sunshine spilled across the track. Parked along pit road, the top 10 were a cocktail of contenders: some already locked into the playoffs, others clinging to hope and math. Up front, the situation was tight — Hamlin on old tires, Bell with four new ones, and Elliott split the difference with two.
After a delay of just under an hour, the moment of truth arrived.
From Afterthought to $1 Million Shot as Ty Dillon Muscles Into In-Season Challenge Final
The top eight stayed out. Ryan Blaney led a small group onto pit road, banking on rubber and a miracle.
The green flew with nine laps to go and the sun beginning its descent. Hamlin now had to hold off the field with what amounted to eight qualifying laps on worn tires and the kind of stubbornness that only comes with age and a lot of unreturned phone calls from critics.
Bell went for broke — and then went for a spin. Coming out of Turn 4, he tangled with Hamlin, looped it, again, and triggered a multi-car mess. William Byron and Noah Gragson got caught up in the crossfire. Byron’s day was done. Bell’s wasn’t, but it may as well have been — he got popped for speeding on pit road during his much-needed stop.
That set up a classic late-race scramble. An overtime shootout, because of course.
Hamlin led the restart, with Larson, Elliott, Briscoe (on the freshest tires in the zip code), and Bowman lined up behind. But before they could complete a lap, Zane Smith — running 16th — went spinning down the backstretch like a fidget spinner in a hurricane. Caution again.
But the lap was just long enough to let Briscoe muscle his way into second, setting up a front row of Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas for one last attempt. Briscoe gave it a go, but Hamlin — old tires, bad odds, and all — made it stick.
Hamlin took the win by .310 of a second, his third at Dover, while Briscoe settled for second. Bowman, Larson, and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top five.
“I thought I did everything I needed to,” Briscoe said. “I thought I had him there for a second. I wish the Camry, the back, was about three inches shorter. I was so close to clearing him. I just couldn’t do it. “
In the kind of subplot you couldn’t script if you tried, Ty Dillon kept his storybook run alive, finishing ahead of John Hunter Nemechek and advancing to the final of NASCAR’s mid-season Challenge. He’ll face Ty Gibbs next Sunday at Indianapolis for a shot at $1 million and, presumably, bragging rights over anyone not named Ty.
Elliott, who had dominated for so long, had to settle for sixth. Bubba Wallace, Blaney, Chris Buescher, and Brad Keselowski filled out the top 10 — a mix of momentum, redemption, and tire strategy that mostly worked, except when it didn’t.
In the end Elliott led the most laps, Bell spun the most times, and Hamlin got the last laugh.
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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