RICHMOND, Va. — Before the final restart in the Cook Out 400, crew chief Scott Graves told Chris Buescher not to let Denny Hamlin do to him what he did to Kyle Larson last weekend at Pocono Raceway.
Buescher had a sizeable lead before Daniel Suarez went for a spin with nine laps remaining at Richmond Raceway.
Before the race returned to green, Buescher took Graves advice. He selected the inside lane, held off Hamlin by .549-seconds and went on to score his first win of 2023.
“I drove in way too deep,” said Hamlin of his drive into Turn 1 with two laps to decide the contest. “I was trying to get to the outside there. Really had a great run off of turn two on the restart and off of four again.
“But, yeah, I was just so close to him there that I wanted to try to squirt a little extra gas to try to get to the outside. Just too much brake.”
Hamlin was greeted by boos at his home track during driver introductions. He started the race third—but was far from the class of the field. His 23XI Racing drivers—Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace—had tremendous speed early on. Reddick won the pole and led 81 laps before a commitment line violation mired him in the field. Wallace led 80 laps but a long pit stop left him with a 12th-place result.
“It was just a day where I thought I was going to get beat with my own stuff,” said Hamlin, who started third. “That team has really struggled at this race track and they really worked closely with the 11 car this week. And I worked hard in the SIM for all three cars and we came here with the same stuff. We all ran about the same until you know, some stuff happened in the middle of the race.
“But I thought that the RFK cars were just a little better in the middle stages. Certainly we had a different strategy there at times but we always would cycle back to second. So it just seems like they were alittle bit better than us. Luckily for us, we had a late race caution to kind of give us a chance.”
Hamlin led 20 laps, most during green-flag pit stops. After last week’s dust up with the No. 5 Chevrolet—and with Richmond being a short track—the crowd waited for Larson to exact his revenge.
Unfortunately, Larson didn’t have a car capable of taking a shot until late in the race. Larson pitted for fresh tires while running 20th on Lap 315. Thirteen laps later, he caught Hamlin in Turn 1 and delivered his message.
“He was having a tough day and we were racing up front for a win,” said Hamlin, who was running fourth at the time of the incident. “It’s all good on my end, for sure.”
With his second place finish, Hamlin moved up to second in the point standings, 41 points behind Martin Truex Jr.
Still, he left the track somewhat disappointed. As Buescher and the No. 17 Roush Fenway Keselowski crew celebrated in Victory Lane, Hamlin admired the trophy from pit road wondering what could have been.
I thought the (Nos.) 6 and the 17 showed race winning pace there in the middle stages,” Hamlin said. “I don’t want to just. You can’t just discredit the speed they had because I had to come from 6th or 8th on that restart but he held that five-second lead against me pretty well on equal tires. So you can’t discredit that the best team won today for sure.
“I’m really jealous over that wooden Virginia trophy, though. They used to have those back in the day. I saw it in the driver meeting and man, I wanted it. I’m look staring at it right now because I just want it so bad.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
