Denny Hamlin won his second straight NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover Motor Speedway on Sunday, surviving two overtime restarts on his way to his 58th career victory.
Hamlin, driving the No. 11 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, is the 19th driver to win three or more Monster Mile Cup Series races and the 13th driver to win two consecutive Cup races at The World’s Fastest One-Mile Oval.
"It was a tough battle," said Hamlin, who led 67 laps. "I had to endure a few restarts there. Those guys gave me a run for it.
"Winning here in Dover is super special to me. To go back-to-back here is amazing."
It wasn't that long ago that Hamlin numbered Dover among his least favorite NASCAR tracks.
Tough race days and poor finishes piled up -- until the future NASCAR Hall of Famer watched some Monster Mile legends on how to navigate the one-mile, high-banked concrete oval.
"I just studied some of the greats here," Hamlin said. "I was very fortunate to have Martin Truex Jr. [four-time Dover winner] as a teammate. Jimmie Johnson, watching him win [11] times here. You learn from the greats and you change your game to match it, you have success like this.
Hamlin beat his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chase Briscoe to the checkered flag by .310 seconds. Past Dover Cup Series winners Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson finished third and fourth, respectively.
"Denny is just after it," said team owner Joe Gibbs. "He's leading the way in so many different ways."
Ty Gibbs finished fifth and advanced to the final round of NASCAR's in-season tournament, where he will square off against Ty Dillon next week in Indianapolis with a $1 million prize at stake.
Briscoe, who had two fresher tires than Hamlin on the final restart, stuck the nose of his No. 19 Toyota out in front of Hamlin for a short time but couldn't complete the pass.
"I thought I did everything I needed to,” said Briscoe, who led 13 laps. “I thought I had him there for a second. I wish the Camry, the back, was about three inches shorter. I was so close to clearing him. I just couldn't do it.
“Obviously, racing a teammate, I wanted to make sure at least a JGR car won. Yeah, it was honestly a great day. We weren't probably a second-place race car, we were a fifth to 10th car. Glad we were able to kind of make a good finish out of it.”
Sixth-place finisher Chase Elliott led the most laps with 238 and won the opening stage. Christopher Bell, who matched Hamlin with 67 laps led, won the second stage but spun twice in the late portions of the race and finished 18th.
Among other notable drivers, Ryan Blaney finished eighth, past Dover Cup Series winner Brad Keselowski placed 10th, and Joey Logano came in 14th.
Hamlin averaged 110.849 mph in completing the 407 laps/miles in 3 hours, 40 minutes and 18 seconds. Ten drivers exchanged the lead 13 times with eight caution periods taking up 50 laps.
