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Denny Hamlin Wins at Kansas Again

Image: Mike Donovo/USA Today Sports

As NASCAR headed southwest from Dover to Kansas, all eyes were on Martin Truex Jr and Joe Gibbs Racing. Truex broke the very notable 54-race winless streak last week at Dover. Over the years, Kansas has been known to be a very chaotic track. Kansas typically produces chaotic, but great racing. That was no different this past weekend. Many fans expected it to be chaotic on Sunday, but what we saw exceeded everyone’s expectations. Coming out of the weekend, there were several major storylines, some of that have even gained national attention.

Hamlin Wins on Controversial last-lap Move:

As previously said, coming into this race weekend, all eyes were on Martin Truex Jr. Kansas has historically been a great track for Truex’s teammate, Denny Hamlin. Up to this point of the season, Kansas was quite possibly Hamlin’s best opportunity to win for the first time this year. That’s exactly what Hamlin did. However, with this win comes controversy for Hamlin. On the race’s final restart on lap 221, Kyle Larson came out with a 1.3-second lead over Hamlin in second place. The chase was on for Hamlin. It was a game of cat and mouse for several laps between Larson and Hamlin. Hamlin would start to reel in Larson over a few laps, and then Larson would start to pull away. This would happen several times until Hamlin was finally able to get to the rear bumper of Larson.

Going into the final lap, Larson led with Hamlin following close behind. Larson would take the high line in turn one with Hamlin just below him. Larson did not get a good exit coming off turn two, which then caused Hamlin to get into the left-rear corner panel of Larson, which got him into the wall. Hamlin would go on to win at Kansas for the fourth time in his career while Larson recovered to finish in second. As the reign of boos came down on Hamlin from the fans, the fact remains that this was a racing incident. Two very fierce competitors were going for the win, and this was the result. However, this controversial move from Hamlin is not the big story from the weekend.

Noah Gragson vs Ross Chastain:

Throughout his time in the Xfinity Series, Noah Gragson has been known to be a fierce competitor. Gragson has been known to speak his mind freely about his competitors, and occasionally, get into some post-race scuffles. On Sunday, the fiery spirit of the young Cup Series rookie came out once again. With 66 laps to go in the race, Chastain and Gragson were racing each other off of turn four. Chastain got tight on the inside of Gragson, which squeezed Gragson into the wall. A few laps later, Gragson would spin out after the contact with the wall. On the radio after the spin, Gragson said “Be ready” to his pit crew. Gragson was not going to let Chastain walk out of Kansas without getting his point across. That’s exactly what happened.

Gragson confronted Chastain about what happened on track, and that’s when things got physical. When Gragson grabbed Chastain’s fire suit, Chastain defended himself. Gragson said in his post-race interview, “Nobody confronts him, someone needed to do something.” The crazy part about this altercation, the entire time Chastain was smiling. This shows he loves this. He loves the spotlight. It was time for someone to send a message to Chastain that he wouldn’t back down, and that was Noah Gragson. It was announced earlier on Tuesday that this incident will not result in any penalties for Gragson or Chastain. With the chaos of Kansas in the rearview mirror, the field now heads southwest from Kansas to Darlington South Carolina.

What to Expect from Darlington:

Darlington is NASCAR’s oldest intermediate track with the first race dating back to 1950. Darlington is a track that is soaked in history and tradition. With that said, this weekend is a Darlington tradition that is known as throwback weekend. Ever since 2015, there have been several teams throughout NASCAR running throwback paint schemes. This has been very popular amongst fans since 2015, and it is still very popular. It would not be a shocker to see the two drivers in the Cup Series headlining the finish of Kansas at the front in Darlington. Those two drivers are Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson. Hamlin has four wins at Darlington while Larson has come close to victory lane at Darlington several times. These two were the epic finish at Darlington in 2021, so we could possibly see another epic finish at Darlington with Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson.

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