Hamlin Honors Fallen Busch At Michigan, Matches Busch’s Career Wins

Starting at the rear of the field, and a mid-race spin couldn’t stop Denny Hamlin from finding the front of the field in the late stages of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

And once the Joe Gibbs Racing driver sniffed clean air, there wasn’t anyone who was going to stop him.

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“This Joe Gibbs team just keeps giving me amazing race cars,” Hamlin stated after the race.

Hamlin, who made a three-wide move for the race lead with 39 laps to go, would work his way around Daniel Suarez, and Carson Hocevar to take control of the 400-mile contest at the 2-mile speedway in Brooklyn, MI.

A race that was once a closely contested affair turned into a Hamlin runaway win, as Hamlin crossed the finish line ahead of runner-up finisher Erik Jones by 11.11 seconds.

“This National Debt Toyota, it’s just amazing. At the last run there, just hammering down. Had a few good restarts, and once we got to the lead, I was going to lay it out, all I had,” Hamlin explained.

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It was a fitting margin of victory for the driver of the No. 11 car on a week when the NASCAR community mourned the loss of Ned Jarrett, a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and former driver of the No. 11.

Additionally, the win marked the 63rd of Hamlin’s future NASCAR Hall of Fame career, which drew him into a tie for ninth on the all-time win list with Kyle Busch, who died at the age of 41 a few weeks ago.

When asked if he could describe the emotions of pulling off the significant win on the heels of the passing of two NASCAR legends, Hamlin said, “No. I mean, the off-season, it was rough for me, it was rough for the NASCAR family, we lost a lot of people. This week, we lost Gentleman Ned, the original badass of the 11. We’re still thinking of Kyle, Samantha, Brexton, and Lennix.”

Hamlin continued, “You know, just an unbelievable feeling to be able to strap in every week, and I don’t take it for granted, this opportunity that I’m in. I just love we’re making the best of it.”

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Following his win, Hamlin would honor Busch, his former 15-year teammate, by waving a tribute flag out of his driver’s side window while performing a massive burnout in front of the crowd, which was thrilled to see the touching gesture.

With a second-place finish, Jones, the driver of the No. 43 LEGACY MOTOR CLUB Toyota, scored his best finish since a win in the 2022 Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. Still, as a racer, he was disappointed to be the first loser at the end of 400 hard fought miles at Michigan, his hometown track.

“I think we would have won, I really think we had the best car, it just didn’t work out perfect,” Jones said. “Everything has to work out really well, and some things just didn’t go right at the end. Denny got out front, and drove away, and we had to work through some traffic.”

After the sting of losing subsides, Jones will have plenty of reason to smile. After his great run on Sunday, he now sits just 18 points outside of the cutline for ‘The Chase’, NASCAR’s version of the Playoffs.

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Bubba Wallace had a car that at times in Sunday’s race looked capable of winning, but lost the handle mid-way through the event. In the end, though, his crew chief Charles Denike got the No. 23 Toyota dialed back in, and Wallace was able to bring the car home in the third position.

Kyle Larson, the defending series champion, continued his more-than-one-year-long losing skid on Sunday, but was able to snag a fourth-place finish, which is just his second top-10 finish in his last six starts.

Carson Hocevar, like Jones, hails from Michigan, and badly wanted to snag a victory in front of his hometown crowd. However, after leading 21 laps, and raising the ire of many of his competitors along the way, Hocevar settled for a fifth-place finish.

Daniel Suarez, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Chris Buescher, and Chase Briscoe capped off the top-10 finishing positions in Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400.

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Tyler Reddick, the series point leader, suffered a hard impact for the second week in a row. On a restart on Lap 83, Reddick was turned into the inside wall in a chain-reaction multi-car melee triggered by Carson Hocevar making contact with John Hunter Nemechek.

Reddick would skid into the inside wall, and would riccochet back across the track, directly into the path of Austin Dillon, who had nowhere to go, and collided very hard with Reddick’s No. 45 Toyota.