BROOKLYN, MI – When asked if he had disdain for Michigan, Denny Hamlin said no.
You would not know that from his post race gestures, though.
“My friend Travis … he was like, ‘Man, it’d feel good if you won from that school up north right in their backyard,” Hamlin said. “I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it for you.’ And so I did it just for my buddy.”
What he did for his buddy was do a little “O-S-U” chant and arm gesture as a nod to the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Hamlin might not hate Michigan, but he does love playing the villain, and this weekend was a perfect moment for that. He’s on the back nine of his racing years, his company is under threat from his NASCAR lawsuit and he’s waiting on the birth of his son. Hamlin had a million reasons to lose the race this weekend. Instead, he came from behind in the waning laps of the race to snatch the win from the driver who’d led most of the race right after the hometown kid suffered a flat tire.
Amid yellow and red flags, Hamlin emerged victorious – much to the crowd’s displeasure. He did not mind, though.
“Until the crowd shifts to mostly cheers or boos, I’m always going to antagonize the booers like that,” Hamlin said. “Until you really get the switch, which I don’t think I’m ever going to in my career, what else is there? … I got to find ways to have fun doing this.”
Hamlin did not seem like the likely winner when the race began, either. Despite his starting third, many eyes were on points leader William Byron, starting fourth, or Carson Hocevar, whose hot stretch coming into the race was a topic of conversation around the pit lane. Hamlin was still in third after a relatively uneventful Stage 1 for him despite several lead changes ahead of him and a fierce battle for fourth and fifth behind his car.
Starting in Stage 2, however, Hamlin’s performance took a dive. Though he was second at the start, he began dropping down the race order, and while battling with Kyle Larson on Lap 58, he got loose and dropped five spots down to eleventh. It was a poor moment for Hamlin, who easily could have been buried down the order with the chaos of the restarts of the second stage.
Instead, Hamlin pulled himself back up the order, and by Lap 85, he had battled back to around the fifth position. He ended the stage eighth but he was still in the fight.
As the third stage commenced, Hamlin was still back in the pack, at one point sitting around eleventh. He also sustained damage after a pit incident where he was stuck between two cars attempting to leave. As the laps ticked down, a comeback seemed increasingly unlikely.
But he went to work, moving up one car at a time. By Lap 175, he’d reached fifth and knew that the drivers ahead of him were in much more dire straits regarding fuel then he was. Seven laps later, Hocevar went down with a flat tire and Hamlin was suddenly in fourth. Hamlin took down Ty Gibbs on Lap 185 and passed Kyle Larson one lap later.
All that was left to do was wait. Byron was nearly out of fuel and was desperately conserving while attempting to hold off Hamlin. Hamlin waited for his opportunity and began an earnest battle for the lead at Lap 196. He passed Byron on Lap 197 at Turn 3 where he had identified Byron as vulnerable and claimed victory two laps later. Byron ultimately had to pit on the second-to-last lap, out of fuel. Hamlin also ran out of fuel – it was just on his second round of victory burnouts.
“I never will assume someone’s going to run out,” Hamlin said. “And I always am going to assume when I get there to challenge for the lead, they’re going to go 100%. And I think that was the case, they told me over the radio (that) they told him, ‘You got to go, you got to hold the lead, and (if) we run out, we run out.’ That’s the right strategy to do, which in turn made it more gratifying to me to pass him when he was going all out.”
Hamlin may be 44, but he’s not done yet. He’s already achieved something only twenty drivers ever have in competing in 700 races, but he wants more wins. He’s not done showing the kids what he can do, either.
“I’m racing guys that are, you know, some of them pretty much half my age,” Hamlin said. “And they’re so good, and they’re really, really good, and so it’s really gratifying when I know I can run with them, and I know I can beat them. … It just feels really good to, 20 years later, still feel like this is the best that I’ve ever been.”
Matthew Auchincloss is a reporter with the Detroit Free Press. Connect at mauchincloss@freepress.com.
