Denny Hamlin dominated, Dale Earnhardt Jr led with three laps to go but Clint Bowyer walked away with the victory in Saturday night's Crown Royal 400 at the Richmond International Raceway.
A concerted effort by NASCAR to ensure that the three-quarter mile Richmond oval would enjoy its 17th consecutive sell-out resulted in home crowd favourite Denny Hamlin repaying his fellow Virginians' faith by smashing the record for the most number of laps led in a 400-lap race at the D-shaped oval. However Friday's Nationwide Series race winner wasn't able to deliver a maiden Cup Series victory at the track he and his family attended as a child when a deflating tyre ended his hopes with less than 20 laps remaining.
From pole position Hamlin's dominance was enough to send most crowds to the concession stands but his home fans were quite happy to stay in their seats as their man led an incredible 381 of the first 382 laps with only occasional, and fleeting resistance from Mark Martin and the man who would eventually turn into the villain of the evening, Kyle Busch.
With just three brief caution periods slowing the action through the first 200 laps Hamlin was able to stretch the legs of his Joe Gibbs racing machine and obliterate the competition with Marin holding on to second place but never able to get within two seconds of the flying #11 FedEx Toyota. Behind the leaders the main story concerned the lack of competitiveness shown by Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson in the early stages with Gordon (who started 43rd after changing the engine on Saturday morning) going a lap down as early as lap 44and Johnson only avoiding being lapped when the second caution flag of the race waved on lap 128 for debris.
Gordon's reprieve came when Juan Montoya spun to bring out caution number three, handing the driver of the #24 Hendrick Chevrolet the 'Lucky Dog' free pass but when racing resumed up at the front the story was much the same with Hamlin comfortably leading Martin, Busch, practice leader Dale Earnhardt Jr, Martin Truex Jr, Clint Bowyer, Kasey Kahne, Carl Edwards, Kevin Harvick and the rest.
The fourth caution of the race shortly after half distance for AJ Allmendinger's spin brought the leaders to pit road for fuel and tyres with Busch's #18 Joe Gibbs crew managing to get their man out ahead of Martin's #8 DEI Chevrolet and for a brief while it looked as though Busch might have something for his teammate at the head of the pack. Hamlin was able to re-assert himself at the front but just 20 laps later the caution flags were out again for Paul Menard's collision with Brian Vickers and Hamlin was pegged back again.
Indeed after a relatively calm start to the night the standard short track tempers began to fray in the second half with six further cautions bring the total number of pace car interventions to eleven before the chequered flag flew.
The sixth caution of the night on lap 231 was the most serious and resulted in the red flags being displayed after no less than twelve cars were damaged in a turn three crash triggered when Dave Blaney tapped JJ Yeley into the outside wall coming off turn two. As the field tried to slow to avoid Yeley's damaged vehicle Patrick Carpentier was punted across the track from behind, smashing the inside wall and ricocheting back up the track in front of at least half the field. The results weren't pretty as car after car piled into Carpentier, blocking the track completely. When the dust settled David Gilliland, Montoya, Michael McDowell, Johnny Sauter, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch, Regan Smith, the luckless Matt Kenseth and series points leader Jeff Burton had all sustained damage with several others, notably the recovering Gordon, escaping by the skin of their teeth.
While that crash thinned the field slightly it made no difference to the lead group as Hamlin continued to lead with Martin and Busch continuing to squabble over second, Martin gaining the upper hand again on lap 254 before losing it again in the pits on lap 262.
