LEBANON, Tenn. — With seven laps to go, Denny Hamlin got by Ross Chastain for the lead at Nashville Superspeedway and drove away.
His fourth victory of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season seemed inevitable. It would’ve been a tremendous bounce back after an uncharacteristic three-week span in which the Joe Gibbs Racing driver finished no better than 24th.
But seconds before taking the white flag: a caution.
Austin Cindric had looped around his Ford, setting up NASCAR Overtime. That began chaos.
On the first overtime attempt, Kyle Larson overdrove turn one, sending Ross Chastain into the fence and causing a massive wreck. The second attempt featured a crash toward the back of the field.
Suddenly, Hamlin’s fuel situation was in major jeopardy. He last pitted on lap 220 and knew he couldn’t go that much longer.
Ultimately, crew chief Chris Gabehart kept him out. On the third attempt, Kyle Larson ran out of fuel and took out Kyle Busch on the frontstretch.
At that point, Hamlin had no choice but to come down for a splash of fuel.
“I was stumbling under caution, so I wasn’t gonna make it,” he said. “I was stumbling, actually, when I came into the box, so we were fine with running it out. We had pit other times (in different races) before and not run out, and Chris, given our situation, was fine with just running the tank out and we did, and I had to pit.
“It was a bunch of us in that same boat. I was 15 seconds away from a win when Austin Cindric spun, and then 10 seconds away on a few cautions after that. Just unlucky.”
That bogged Hamlin at the rear of the lead-lap cars, and after two more overtime attempts, ended up coming home 12th.
“I knew once they started one (caution), it was going to be lots of them,” he said. “Just the way that we were all going into turn one, and everyone’s sliding and beating and banging, I knew that we were cooked.
“I thought we were cooked after the first (caution). Surprised we lasted as long as we did.”
Hamlin had one of the dominant cars of the weekend, qualifying on the pole and running in the top five for most of the race. He led three times for 70 laps and drove from mid-pack to the lead over the final 80 scheduled laps.
But ultimately, he insisted their decision to stay out that long wasn’t a gamble. Tyler Reddick pitted before the first overtime attempt, and through attrition, ended up finishing third. Still, Hamlin blamed his unfortunate defeat on bad luck.
“We just were trying to do the best we could with the fastest car,” Hamlin said. “We drove to the lead from way back, 15th or so, and we had an untimely caution with 10 seconds to go in the race.”