Denny Hamlin Nabs Cheez-It 355

BY ESPN

We interrupt a season of Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota dominance on NASCAR Sprint Cup Series oval tracks to bring news of a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota win on the Watkins Glen International road course.

Denny Hamlin was the man in front when the checkered flag fell to end the Cheez-It 355, a race that nobody seemed to want to win.

It was a race that Hamlin didn't even think he would start. The 35-year-old Virginian woke Sunday morning with back spasms, barely able to move.

Despite enduring pain he described as the worst he had ever experienced during the course of a race, Hamlin maintained his poise while many others lost theirs.

The No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Camry took the lead on a late restart and paced the last 10 laps to cross the line ahead of the Team Penske Fords of Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski. Meanwhile the rest of the field self-destructed in their wake.

By NASCAR road racing standards, this was a strangely unsatisfying affair with a pair of red flags and a series of crashes in the second half of the race that eliminated the usual fuel-mileage-strategy tension.

There was sloppiness in the pits too, with 18 of the 40 drivers penalized for some kind of pit road infraction.

Eight drivers led laps during the 90-lap contest, and seven of them could legitimately say they had a shot at the win.

Martin Truex Jr. came closest, getting his Toyota to within a few feet of Hamlin's similar car entering the last turn of the last lap. But Keselowski came in even hotter and spun Truex out and down to a seventh-place finish.