Have to be a helluva factor.
You set collectively one of many higher NASCAR careers of anybody within the almost 80 years of the In truth, of all who got here earlier than you, solely 9
After which Kevin Harvick, just a few years after retirement and absolutely settled in as a part of the Fox Sports activities broadcast crew, watches Denny Hamlin punt him proper out of the highest 10 of all-time Cup winners.
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As he did final October, Hamlin gained Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It’s the 61st win of a full-time Cup Sequence profession that started 20 years in the past.
So, clearly, it’s the primary win after an offseason that redefined bittersweet for the veteran racer.
Denny Hamlin visited Victory Lane for the 61st time in his Cup Sequence profession.
1. As soon as once more, order restored in NASCAR
Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports crammed out the complete high 5 finishers at Las Vegas. Two weeks right into a six-week run of bread-and-butter NASCAR oval tracks, nobody ought to be stunned.
Hamlin led the way in which, as he did greater than any driver final yr, when he gained a series-high six races. The sixth of these wins final season got here at Las Vegas, final October. Solely seven races have handed since then, and Hamlin assumed he’d be fairly good this previous weekend.
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“I don’t know if we’re a lot completely different than we had been final yr, and we gained probably the most races final yr,” he advised the Fox Sports activities TV viewers.
2. The entire Joe Gibbs secure runs with the lead canines
Toyota had an amazing weekend, from qualifying by way of Sunday’s checkers. However this time it wasn’t the 2 23XI frontrunners of Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace, although they hardly went belly-up.
Bubba completed ninth and Tyler thirteenth. Not dangerous, however they had been hardly the Toyota water-carriers. Whereas the Gibbs’ Toyota group gained, that crew additionally completed fourth (Christopher Bell), fifth (Ty Gibbs) and eighth (Chase Briscoe, who badly wanted an honest end after a horrible begin to 2026).
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However let’s concentrate on Ty Gibbs, whose four-year Cup profession has been a little bit of a bust after dominating the ARCA and Xfinity Sequence from 2020-22. After sluggish begins at Daytona and Atlanta, he’s completed fourth, fourth and fifth the previous few weeks.
3. NASCAR ‘coming residence’ this week. Additionally: Sebring
From glamor and glitz to clamor and grits. After a weekend in splashy Las Vegas, NASCAR returns to its deep roots subsequent week with three days of racing at Darlington Raceway.
The March 20-22 weekend contains the Truck Sequence on Friday, O’Reilly on Saturday, and the season’s sixth Cup race with Sunday’s Goodyear 400.
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In the event you’re inclined to combine in some sports-car motion, you will have virtually all of Saturday to scratch that itch — the 74th version of IMSA’s Twelve Hours of Sebring begins at 10 a.m.
