DARLINGTON, S.C. —Denny Hamlin took the lead on the final restart, passing Joey Logano with a last lap inside crossover move to win the Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200 Saturday at Darlington Raceway. It was his fifth XFINITY win at Darlington.
“Just a really good restart, got through (Turns) 1 and 2 really good, just held it wide open through l and 2,” Hamlin said after the race, “great run by the 22 (Logano) getting back to me there on the last lap. I think that was a throwback to Dale Earnhardt there in Turns 3 and 4.”
Logano led a race-high 58 laps in his No. 22 Ford and was disappointed with his second-place finish.
“Obviously, second hurts, Logano said. We want to win every one of them and we just got out-motored. He went through the gear box and got position on me and off he went. He had me at his right-rear quarter, which allowed him to stay wide open and clear me. I thought I had a run down the backstretch. He knew what I was thinking and I knew what he was thinking. I was just hoping that I got up to the wall and was able to rotate when I got there, but I just got tight when I got there.”
Harvick was also a strong contender in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 41 Ford, leading 54 laps during the race, but had to settle for third.
‘We had a great Hunt Brothers Ford,” he said, but “it just didn’t wind up working out there at the end. I wound up on the bottom and I kept my foot in it over there, got loose underneath the 20. We weren’t the strongest for five or 10 laps and that didn’t really work out with that short run there at the end and we got stuck on the bottom. We got loose and then we got freight-trained, but just a great car. It wound up being a great race and that’s all you can ask for.”
Erik Jones scored fourth place with William Byron rounding out the top five finishers. Elliott Sadler remains the points leader with a 91 point advantage over second-place Byron.
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