Hamlin and Wallace tangle as Elliott takes shock NASCAR Cup win at Kansas

Denny Hamlin’s 60th career win will have to wait for another day. On the final restart of the race, Bubba Wallace got out front after pushing Christopher Bell out of the way at the white flag.

This gave Hamlin a huge run, and suddenly, he was the only driver who could stop Wallace from winning his way into the Round of 8. The awkward dynamic here? Wallace drives for Hamlin’s race team. That didn’t stop Hamlin from driving it in deep, pushing up the track with contact forcing Wallace into the outside wall.

As this played out, Chase Elliott came out of seemingly nowhere once the top two collided, door-slamming Hamlin and winning the race in a finish for the ages.

“Everything worked out perfect for me,” said Elliott. “Had a great push through one and two. That kind of all started with the 6. Big run off of two. Seas kind of parted and just was able to keep my momentum up. That was really it.

“Obviously we still had pretty good tires compared to those guys, but what a crazy finish. Hope you all enjoyed that. I certainly did. Really proud of our team. Had a really solid weekend, win or no win. Really nice to qualify really well.

“We’ll certainly enjoy this, man. This is pretty cool. Just never take this stuff for granted because they’re hard to come by. Learned that the hard way. Always enjoy it. Always appreciate it.”

Watch: Wallace: ‘Hate we gave it to Chevrolet’ after last-lap scrap with Hamlin

Hamlin finished second, Bell third, Chase Briscoe fourth, and Wallace fifth.

Kyle Larson, Tyler Reddick, Brad Keselowski, William Byron, and Shane van Gisbergen filled out the remainder of the top ten. That was SVG’s first career top ten finish on an oval in the Cup Series.

Stage 1

Briscoe held the lead early from position, but Hamlin remained close and took the top spot away 20 laps into the race.

Shane van Gisbergen and Michael McDowell both went a lap down quickly after serving a mandatory stop-and-go penalty at the start, which was issued because they were found to have made unapproved adjustments on Saturday.

The first round of green-flag stops began after 32 laps of racing with Wallace diving down pit road before anyone else. Larson got out in front of Hamlin during the pit stop cycle, but Hamlin quickly moved back around him.

The first incident of the race was for Cody Ware, who slammed the wall after something failed in the right-front of his No. 51 Rick Ware Racing Ford.

Hamlin and Logano both chose to take two tires during the next round of pit stops under caution, keeping Hamlin out front and netting Logano a lot of positions.

Reddick, who was set to secure a handful of stage points, was forced to come back down pit road a second time before the restart.

Hamlin held strong, winning Stage 1 with the Hendrick Motorsports duo of Larson and Elliott behind him. Logano’s gamble worked out, as he was seventh and collected four stage points

Stage 2

During the stage break, Reddick and Bell nearly collided as Bell tried to exit his box with a call for two tires. Reddick was clearly frustrated on the radio as another pit road snafu proved costly for him.

As for Bell, he still exited pit road with the race lead.

Not long after the restart, Ryan Preece slid up the track and collided with John Hunter Nemechek. Both drivers crashed, spinning through the infield.

The rest of the stage was green after that, featuring another round of green-flag pit stops. Erik Jones was penalized due to an uncontrolled tire.

During the cycle, Wallace executed an undercut and got ahead of Hamlin, but once again, the No. 11 did not stay there for long.

Hamlin went on to sweep the stages, beating Bell and Larson.

Stage 3

At the start of the final stage, Elliott got ahold of the race lead with Hamlin closely pursuing him. Eventually, he found his way back to the race lead.

The green-flag was interrupted by an incident involving J.J. Yeley, who wrecked after contact from Carson Hocevar.

From that point onward, things only got crazier. There was a massive restart pileup, which involving defending champion Joey Logano. Several other drivers were collected in the Turn 1 melee, including: Austin Cindric, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Kyle Busch, A.J. Allmendinger, Noah Gragson, Carson Hocevar, and Austin Dillon.

Hamlin remained in control of the race until a caution for debris with 15 laps to go, as Busch shed a tire at the exit of Turn 4.

Hamlin had a slow stop, which dropped him outside the top five. Most of the leaders made a two-tire call, and Bell was now in control.

As he and Wallace battled fiercely for the lead, Hocevar triggered another caution when he spun. This pushed the race into overtime, where a wild incident unfolded in the middle of the pack. Zane Smith’s car climbed up the wall and flipped over, halting the race. He was uninjured.

Once they got that cleaned up, the final two-lap dash played out with Elliott charging through to snag the win.