NASCAR Cup Series

Denny Hamlin became the first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver to record four wins this season and the first to score back-to-back victories after beating the field to the finish line in Sunday's 'green-white-checkered' shootout at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and clinching a berth in the 2012 Chase for the championship in the process. The #11 pit crew got Hamlin out in front of the field after the race's final caution period, and the 31-year-old driver outdueled four-time champion Jeff Gordon to the checkered flag.

From daylight to darkness over the Labor Day holiday weekend, here is what was surprising and not surprising in the 53rd annual Advocare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Hamlin beat Martin Truex, Jr. out of the pits on the race’s final caution, and then held off Jeff Gordon to win the AdvoCare 500. Hamlin’s fourth win of the year will give him the top seed in the Chase in two weeks, barring a win atRichmondby Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, or Brad Keselowski.

t’s finally Silly Season time and moves are happening fast. The season started prematurely with A.J. Allmendinger’s failed drug test and Matt Kenseth’s shocking announcement that he was leaving Roush Fenway, but this is the time of year when Silly Season starts in earnest and started it has.

JOE GIBBS, team owner, Joe Gibbs Racing Was part of the appeal in Matt Kenseth his long tenure with one organization? "The reason you stay at one place for a long time is that you're very good and they want to keep you. That's the same way we feel about Denny (Hamlin) and Kyle (Busch) -- we want to keep them forever here and it's a big deal for us. I think that speaks a lot for Matt (Kenseth) and his career."

Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet team return to Richmond (Va.) International Raceway (RIR) this week for Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race.

This weekend at Richmond International Raceway the Team Chevy Display will feature the Team Chevy Test Drive area located next to the Chevy fan fest. This is a space where fans can climb behind the wheel of an array of featured Chevrolet vehicles and take a test drive on site. The featured vehicles fans can test drive include: Sonic, Malibu, Cruze, Volt, Camaro SS, Camaro Convertible, Corvette Grand Sport, Equinox, Traverse and Silverado. The Test Drive Area will share the same hours of operation as the main Team Chevy display.

Carl Edwards on racing at Richmond International Raceway: “We’re going to Richmond to win. We need some luck and we need it to be good luck. We’ve passed more cars in the last month than we’ve passed all year. I wouldn’t go to Richmond with any other team, in any other car. I feel like the No.99 Cheez-It Ford is the favorite there because of how we ran in the spring and we’re settling for nothing less than victory lane.”

As Sunday’s Atlanta Insert-Sponsor-Name-Here 500 slowly dragged by, in which forty-three brightly-colored cars repetitively drove around Atlanta Motor Speedway something like 330 times, I found myself, once again, not really interested in watching the race, just like I’ve not been interested in watching every other race over the last two Sprint Cup seasons…although I regret missing Watkins Glen a couple of weeks ago.

Thirty-one caution laps in Sunday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Advocare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway netted a donation of $6,200 to the American Cancer Society on behalf of Chevrolet.