Hamlin Wins One For Virginia

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By Ron Felix

CIA Stock Photo Hamlin Celebrates

Although there was a light mist for most of the race at Martinsville Speedway, the rain in the area stayed away and allowed Denny Hamlin to win his first Sprint Cup race at Martinsville and it was the first victory in his home state of Virginia. It was Hamlin's first win this year, the second for Toyota and Hamlin became the track's 45th different winner.

"The curse is over, I hope," said Hamlin, who is from nearby Chesterfield, Virginia. "We've had such bad luck over the past few races."

Hamlin started the Goody's Cool Orange 500 on the outside of the front row and led the first lap but fell back after contact with Aric Almirola. Hamlin ran in the top five until lap 218 when he was one of only a handful of cars that stopped on the eighth caution period. Hamlin restarted in 19th spot and slowly worked his way to the front of the field again. Hamlin didn't lead again until lap 427 but never gave up the spot again.

Hamlin held off a hard charging Jeff Gordon, who finished second on the day.

"It came down to pit strategy and Denny (Hamlin) and those guys definitely did the right strategy taking two (tires)," said Gordon. "I don't know my car just would never go on that last set, last two sets. It was a handful, Junior got by me and I was just trying to hold on and all of a sudden it started coming to me a little bit. Luckily there was a real long run there and I was able to get by the 99 and the 31 and make a great effort out of it. I'm just real proud of this Dupont Chevrolet Impala team. They worked hard, we had a great car.

Jeff Burton, last race winner at Bristol, finished third and two-time Sprint Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson battled his way back to fourth after contact with Ryan Newman and Greg Biffle that put him back in 12th place.

"Definitely it was a good day," Johnson explained. "We had fantastic stops and we had a shot to win today when it was all said and done. We lost a lot of track position early; I am not sure exactly what happened. I believe the sixteen got into the twelve and that kind of set my spin off. It was unfortunate but that is short track racing."

Hamlin's teammate Tony Stewart was fifth followed by Dale Earnhardt Jr., Casey Mears, Jamie McMurray, Carl Edwards and Clint Bowyer rounded out the top ten.

Points leader Kyle Busch lost his advantage when the rear-end gears in his Toyota Camry burned up on lap 283 and relinquished the points lead to Jeff Burton by 39 over his teammate Kevin Harvick.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. led five times for 148 laps to earn WIX Filters Lap Leader of the Race honors in today’s Goody’s Cool Orange 500. Earnhardt Jr. captured award for the first time this season and has led at least one lap in four of the six Sprint Cup race this season (239 total laps).

“We had a little different setup than we have run here before and I think we can make that work," Earnhardt said. "That was the longest green flag run we had on tires today, that last one. I ran too hard at the start of it and used up my stuff a little bit and didn’t have any tires at the end to hold them guys off. I should have been more patient.

"I am not really disappointed," Earnhardt contiued. "I know my guys are, but I am not, trust me. Tony, Jr. and the guys are disappointed with it. They saw that car run up front all day and they wanted to finish there. We tried, but, again, the wins will come. We just have to be patient and be happy and mindful about the points we are getting in this stretch. We have a little bit of a period in the summer where we go to tracks that we are off and on, hot and cold at. We need get a good base of points built up as early as we can, so in case we have any kind of struggles in mid season, so just trying to be guarded and smart."

Regan Smith scored a 14th-place finish, his best in 13 career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races. He took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the second consecutive race and for the third time in six races this season. Smith scored the best finish by a Raybestos Rookie in 2008. Smith has been running at the finish of every race this season. Unofficially Smith and Dario Franchitti are tied for the lead in the Raybestos Rookie standings (60-60).

“There was a number of situations where I could have stuck my nose in there behind a guy like Harvick or Stewart or somebody like that," said Smith. "I could have stuck my nose in there and maybe rooted them out of the way but it’s going to come back at me 10 times worse, I’m sure of that. Just trying to be fair and get respect but get a good run also. I got into Juan Pablo (Montoya) a couple of times there racing with him really hard. I hate that I did that but I was locking my left front brake up and slipping and sliding up by the curb there. We were just racing hard. Nobody got wrecked or anything like that so no harm, no foul.”

The Sprint Cup Series moves to Texas Motor Speedway next Sunday April 6th, 2008, for the Samsung 500. The race is scheduled to start at 1:30 PM / Eastern Time on Fox.


For full final race results...     (Insider Racing News)
For top-40 Nextel Cup drivers points...     (Insider Racing News)

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