After winning Richmond, Hamlin eyes Martinsville
There are seven different race winners in the sevenweek-old NASCAR Cup Series season and plenty of reason to believe that trend will continue in Saturday night’s Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 at Martinsville Speedway.
Last week for the first time since he won the 2021 Las Vegas playoff race, 41-yearold Denny Hamlin hoisted a trophy. He snapped a streak of 12 consecutive wins by drivers under the age of 30 and also put the perennial championship contender Hamlin back on course after a rocky start to the season.
The driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota shows up at Martinsville as the winningest active driver (five wins) at the half-mile track — and easily one of the most motivated after an uncharacteristically slow start to the year. His win at Richmond last Sunday marks his only top-10 this season to date.
There is a robust list of traditional annual race winners — from Hamlin’s JGR teammates Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch to former series champions Chase Elliott, Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick — still vying for that first 2022 victory. And there’s plenty of reason to make any of them a favorite for this weekend’s race — officially shortened from the historical 500 laps (to a scheduled 400 laps) for the first time in 50 years.
Truex has three wins in the last five Martinsville races and is the defending spring race winner — taking the victory by a full 1.9 seconds over Elliott and Hamlin last March — despite Hamlin’s race-best 276 laps out front.
Elliott won in 2020 and Logano in 2018, while brothers Kyle (twice) and Kurt Busch (twice) have victories at Martinsville as well.
As with Hamlin, William Byron, who led late at Richmond last week but was overtaken in the final laps, finished top-five in both Martinsville races last year.
Byron’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Elliott, finished among the top five in the 2021 Martinsville spring race but finished 16th in the playoff race later in the year. His laps led total (525) in the last three races (including his 2020 playoff victory) is most in the series during that time.
There is plenty of extra mental motivation as well. Elliott, who has advanced to the last two Championship 4 rounds, is the only member of the four-driver Hendrick team without a win so far this year.
Neither Elliott nor Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney has won this season, however the pair currently are tied atop the championship standings by 19 points over Truex.