Denny Hamlin overcame a pair of pit road penalties and the sweep-bound agenda of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch to win the 23rd annual O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway.
Hamlin scored the 33rd win of his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career by 2.743-seconds over Clint Bowyer, who was followed across the finish line by Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Daniel Suarez. Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota Camry, opened the season with a victory in the Daytona 500 after going winless in 2018.
“We tried every way we could to give it away,” said Hamlin, who gave team-owner Joe Gibbs his 161st Cup victory. “But our car was really, really fast _ a super-fast car.”
The win also was Hamlin’s third on TMS’ high-banked/1.5-mile oval. The Virginia native swept the two Cup races here in 2010.
Rounding out the top-10 were JGR’s Erik Jones, pole-sitter Jimmie Johnson of Hendrick Motorsports, William Byron of HMS, Aric Almirola and Kevin Harvick of SHR, Kurt Busch of Chip Ganassi Racing and Kyle Busch.
The winner of Friday night’s Gander Outdoors Truck Series Vankor 350 and Saturday’s Xfinity Series My Bariatric Solutions 300, “Rowdy” Busch saw his bid for a third tripleheader weekend sweep sabotaged by a brush with the wall with his No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota exiting Turn 2 on Lap 276 of the scheduled 334.
Earlier, Hamlin used a gas-only pit stop under green to gain track position en route to his Stage 2 victory at Lap 170. It was Hamlin’s first stage win of the season. Hamlin also became the seventh different Cup driver to win a stage this season.
TMS PR
