LOUDON, N.H. – Denny Hamlin stepped out of his car, pointed into the air and took a mighty swing of an invisible baseball bat. Like Babe Ruth did before him (or so the legend goes), Hamlin had called his shot.
The top winner in NASCAR’s regular season earned his series-leading fifth victory of the year Sunday, backing up a tweet of “We will win” with a mistake-free and dominating run at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the second event of the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
“You don’t want to sound too cocky, but I knew what we were capable of,” said Hamlin, who was 32nd in qualifying after his crew put the wrong pressure in his tires. “I know we made a couple of big mistakes, but I said we were fast enough to make it up and we did.”
It was the 100th career victory for team owner Joe Gibbs, who also won three Super Bowls as the coach of the Washington Redskins. And it came with a little teamwork, too, when Kyle Busch slowed down to help suck some debris off the front of Hamlin’s car and propel him to victory.
“As fast as he was, he could have gone to the back of any car and pulled that off,” said Jimmie Johnson, who finished second and took over the Chase lead. “I kind of thought he would be the guy to beat and he certainly was. We are second-best.”