Hamlin wins at Miami
Denny Hamlin and about 1,000 NASCAR fans outlasted multiple weather delays.
Denny Hamlin won the NASCAR Cup Series Dixie Vodka 400 after battling with Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney through the final stretch Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Hamlin led for much of the race, but Elliott took the lead on the final green flag pit stop of the night. Hamlin was able to retake the lead for good with 30 laps to go and hold off Elliott, who finished in second. Blaney was third and rookie Tyler Reddick came in fourth.
The race, which was set for a 3:30 p.m. start, finished deep into Sunday evening thanks to a two-hour rain and lightning delay just five laps into the race, and then another delay of nearly 40 minutes after more lightning made its way through the area during Stage 1.
Hamlin had the best car all day, winning stages 1 and 2 ahead of his third win of the season. He won the Daytona 500 and Toyota 500, which was the second race at Darlington, S.C., after the Cup Series resumed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hamlin is the first driver this season to win the two stages and go on to win the race. The No. 11 driver also tied Mark Martin for 19th on the alltime list with 40 career Cup wins.
It was the first NASCAR event to have fans in attendance since the coronavirus forced the nation into quarantine, as a few hundred military personnel from the nearby Homestead Air Force base were invited to the race.
For the previous 18 seasons, Homestead was the last stop on the Cup Series calendar and played host to Ford Championship weekend. The race was moved to March after last season when NASCAR reshuffled the schedule, and then the pandemic pushed the South Florida race ahead to June.
The Cup Series has the rest of the week off — no midweek race — and will head to Talladega Superspeedway for the Geico 500 Sunday.
Overtime clutch
Chase Briscoe lost much of his team and got a win for them.
Briscoe survived two late cautions and a frantic overtime finish to prevail in an Xfinity Series race Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway — while adding to a nightmarish weekend for Noah Gragson, who saw a huge lead slip away in the final laps for the second consecutive day.
Briscoe was without crew chief Richard Boswell, car chief Nick Hutchins and engineer DJ Vanderley, all of whom began serving fourrace suspensions for a safety violation that happened Saturday. So Briscoe — a big Tony Stewart fan growing up — got Stewart-Haas Racing competition director Greg Zipadelli to fill in as his crew chief and prevailed.
“It’s just a testament to our team,” Briscoe said.
Brandon Jones was second, Ross Chastain was third and A.J. Allmendinger was fourth. Gragson placed fifth, losing not only a race that was in his hands for the second consecutive day but also the $100,000 “Dash For Cash” bonus that wound up going to Allmendinger instead.
“Guess we’ll go to Talladega and do it again,” Allmendinger said.
With 15 laps to go, it was basically down to a two-car race: Gragson was leading, about 2½ seconds ahead of Briscoe. Nobody else was within 10 seconds of the lead, a very similar scenario to Saturday when Gragson had a huge lead over Dale Earnhardt Jr. going into the last laps before a caution tightened the field and gave Harrison Burton the chance to grab the win on the final lap.
Austin Cindric spun out and brought a late caution, derailing Gragson’s momentum and setting up the first of two overtime finishes. Gragson never had control of the race again, and Briscoe wound up in victory lane.
“The team did an unbelievable job to set up the car,” Gragson said. “We had the lead there at the end. … I have to start working on myself. That’s unacceptable by my standards. These guys, they work their tails off and it’s not to run fifth. It’s to win these races.”