Denny Hamlin ends 10-year win drought at Martinsville Speedway

MARTINSVILLE, Va. (AP) — At the track he loves to dominate, Denny Hamlin was back on top with a new face atop his pit box.

The Joe Gibbs Racing star ended an agonizing 10-year winless streak at Martinsville Speedway, holding off teammate Christopher Bell in his home state to secure a spot in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.

Hamlin, who was raised a few hours away in the Richmond suburb of Chesterfield, leads active Cup drivers with six victories at Martinsville. But Sunday was his first checkered flag on the 0.526-mile oval in southwest Virginia since March 29, 2015, and also his first with crew chief Chris Gayle, who joined the No. 11 team this season.

Driving a Camry that “certainly felt like the old days” after the team overhauled its setup, Hamlin led a race-high 274 of the final laps after taking the lead from Chase Elliott.

With the 55th victory of his career (tying NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace for 11th on the career list), the 44-year-old Hamlin also snapped a 31-race winless streak since last April at Dover.

“Chris Gayle, all the engineers, the pit crew, everybody really just deciding they were going to come here with a different approach than the last few years,” Hamlin said. “It was just amazing. It did everything I needed it to do. Just so happy to win with Chris. Gosh, I love winning here.”

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Gayle was a surprise replacement for longtime crew chief Chris Gabehart, who moved into an executive role at Joe Gibbs Racing after leading Hamlin to 23 victories from 2019-24. Gayle said the team told him of the move just before informing Hamlin.

“It was probably a shock to Denny, obviously,” Gayle said. “Gabehart had been with him for a while. They’d been successful. But they were making changes at JGR for the betterment of the whole. I know Denny was probably apprehensive about, ‘I don’t want to start over at my age, don’t want a new team.’ ”

In what he called a “very unique” arrangement, Gayle was moved into the position without any other significant personnel changes on the team. Surrounded by familiar faces, Hamlin said he has meshed well with Gayle, who previously was the crew chief for Ty Gibbs.

“Chris has had a tough go of it,” Hamlin said. “When we didn’t have a great weekend, social media people were just out to get him. They think he’s been the problem for all of these years. It’s just not the case. He’s had the tough task of having such young drivers his whole career. That is really hard to do. I think having someone as laid back as I am for the first time in his career is probably making his job a lot easier.”

Bell, who leads the Cup Series with three wins in 2025, finished second after starting from the pole position, and Bubba Wallace took third as Toyotas swept the top three. The Chevrolets of Elliott and Kyle Larson rounded out the top five.

“It was a great weekend for Joe Gibbs Racing,” said Bell, who had finished outside the top 10 the past two weeks. “Showed a lot of pace. Really happy to get back up front. The last two weeks have been rough. Really happy for Denny. He’s the Martinsville master. Second is not that bad.”

Hamlin had to survive four restarts — and a few strong challenges from Bell — in the final 125 laps as Martinsville produced the typical short-track skirmishes between several drivers.

The most notable multicar accident involved Toyota drivers Ty Gibbs and Tyler Reddick, who had a civil postrace discussion in the pits.

Joey Logano was collected in an incident with Chase Briscoe that caused the 10th and final caution. The three-time Cup Series champion put the blame on Ross Chastain for squeezing Briscoe, who then ran into Logano while trying to get back at Chastain.

“Ross just sticking it in a tight spot,” Logano said. “He did it to me on the restart before. (Chastain) just races like a jackass every week, and I keep paying the price. I’m sick of paying the price.”

Bubba’s big day

Bubba Wallace tied a season best and improved to eighth in the Cup points standings but was left lamenting his lack of speed on restarts after being unable to pressure Hamlin.

“My restarts were terrible,” said Wallace, who drives the No. 23 Toyota for the 23XI Racing team co-owned by Hamlin and NBA legend Michael Jordan. “One of my best traits, so I need to go back and study that. The final restart, I let that second get away. I don’t know if I had anything for Denny. It would have been fun to try. But all in all, a hell of a day for Toyota.”

Postrace disqualification

Two hours after the race, NASCAR officials announced Erik Jones’ No. 43 Toyota was disqualified for failing to meet the minimum weight requirement. Originally credited with 24th, Jones was reclassified in 38th and had 18 points deducted from his total.

NASCAR also took the cars of Jones and Ty Dillon to its R&D Center for further inspection.

Special day turns sour

After being honored Sunday morning with a Virginia General Assembly proclamation commending Wood Brothers Racing’s 75th anniversary, Josh Berry led 40 laps in the team’s hometown race before disaster struck. Berry’s No. 21 Ford was hit in the left rear by Wallace while exiting the pits.

Berry, who can withstand a poor finish because his Las Vegas victory qualified him for the playoffs, returned after losing two laps for repairs. He still managed to lead the most laps for Wood Brothers Racing at Martinsville since NASCAR Hall of Famer David Pearson led 180 on April 29, 1973.

Up next

The Cup Series will race next Sunday at historic Darlington Raceway, the South Carolina track that will celebrate a “throwback weekend” that encourages teams to feature vintage paint schemes and crew uniforms.

It’s the first of two annual races on the 1.366-mile oval that dates to 1950. Brad Keselowski won last year’s throwback race, and Chase Briscoe won the Southern 500 last September.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing