Denny Hamlin still has it.

Sure, there were some lucky breaks along the way in winning the Autotrader Echopark Automotive 400 at Dover Motor Speedway on Sunday but the 44-year-old executed under pressure in a big way over the final 12 laps of the race.

And that’s the story here — that at nearly 45-years-old, Hamlin has four wins this season and 58 in a career that is still searching for the decisive career-defining championship this November.

Hamlin is more than capable of doing what it takes to get there at an age where many of his recent peers have started to taper-off competitively.

“I love it,” Hamlin said. “I just love that I’m able to still do it at a high level. I mean, every morning when I wake up, I’m just hoping I still got what I had yesterday, you know? You just never know when you get to this age, right?

“Last night, I was looking at the TV. It was a little fuzzy. I think I was just tired. ‘Oh, man, I’m not losing my eyesight, am I?’ I get paranoid about little things that might hamper my ability to do things at a high level.

“Every time I get in the car, during the first stage, I’m just driving by cars (and) it’s like, ‘We’re still good.’

Good is an understatement. Hamlin is leading the division in wins and is on pace to be the top-seeded contender once the playoffs start in September. His latest triumph comes at one of the most physically demanding tracks in Dover on a hot and humid day where so many of his peers opted to wear cool suits — something his old-school approach doesn’t partake in.

“This is one of the more physical, demanding racetracks that we go to anyway,” Hamlin said. “It’s certainly in the top I think three just simply because of the g-forces it has. You don’t have long straightaways to take breaks. When I say ‘take breaks’, typically drivers like to relax your body. You should relax your bodies on the straightaways to not fatigue all your muscles during the course of a three-and-a-half-hour race.

“There’s not a lot of time to do that at this track. With it hotter, you’re going to be more dehydrated. You’re going to have to take in more fluids, have sweat dripping in your eyes. Many times, I had to clean off my eyes because I have sweat dripping down through my visor. It was one of those hotter races that we’ve had this season, what we’ve had in a while.

“But really, I felt fine all day long. It’s just the hottest it was is when we went back racing. The car heat soaking on pit road there, the car was way hotter once we got back in with 13 laps to go than it was when we were running all day long. Just not having that wind running through the car and cooling it, it was an oven.”

Then Hamlin proceeded to fend off much younger peers in the form of 30-year-old teammates Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe. He arguably schooled them. Bell spun under Hamlin on the first restart back after a one-hour rain delay and then gritted out the win on older tires compared to Briscoe.

Gritted being the word for contact and a late clear, whatever it took to get the decisive clean air, even against drivers out of the same shop.

“That’s the toughest line to walk truthfully because if it is someone else, you don’t mind running ’em up in the fuzz, right,” Hamlin said. “If it’s a teammate, you got to sit down and you got to see that guy tomorrow afternoon. It’s just a little different in that aspect.

“When we went back, right before we went back, me and Christopher were walking back to our cars. I said, ‘Just don’t wipe me out.’ I was afraid (because) we had old tires (and) I don’t know what the grip level of the track is. I just didn’t want JGR cleaning itself out (and) somebody else winning it.

“I think, truthfully, he probably laid off of me there off of four and ended up wrecking himself because he didn’t want to have the big contact.”

It was the second time in the race that Bell spun racing for the leader, the first coming against Chase Elliott.

“Denny was on my outside and we’re both pushing hard,” Bell said. “You know, whoever gets clean air and wins that restart is going to win the race. I wasn’t going to let him go, that’s for sure.”

Bell was only in a position to even have a chance at the end because he caught a caution as the leader but only after everyone ahead of him pitted. Hamlin cycled through to the lead and was able to fend off all the challenges on the ensuing restarts.

That included Briscoe at the end.

“He was doing such a good job of pinning me so tight that I couldn’t really do a whole lot,” Briscoe said. “If I could have stayed there one more lap? I don’t know, it’s hard to say, right? I was two, three inches away from clearing him a couple of times and could never get it done.

“Denny was probably the best car, so it was going to be hard to just pass him – even with the tire advantage, I couldn’t do it. I definitely think if it wasn’t a teammate, I could have done a lot of things differently to potentially win the race. But I didn’t want to screw one of the JGR cars.”

So here is Hamlin, approaching 45, as good as he ever was and it’s time to start entertaining the question about his chances of winning that elusive championship. As Hamlin himself is fond of saying, every year is his year, until it’s no longer his year.

“It’s not an accident that the same five guys running up front every single week,” Hamlin said. “It’s just a matter of can those five guys make it through this type of format in the playoffs? We couldn’t even make it out of 32nd seed in a bracket. It’s a tough format. When you shorten your seasons into three races, fricking anything can happen. I try not to just, ‘oh, we’re going to do it this year.’

“If we do, we do. If we don’t, we don’t. I care about wins. Trust me, I want more trophies, more trophies, more trophies. When I’m done, I want to be in the top 10 of all-time winners. That will mean more than any other accomplishment I could have.”

58 down.
Three to go.

The rest can (maybe) come later.

Settling

Hendrick Motorsports

On one hand, Chase Elliott took over the NASCAR Cup Series championship lead with a sixth-place result but after leading 238 laps, it felt like settling.

For one, the Hendrick Motorsports No. 9 team led171 of the first 184 laps before the car fell off a jack during a pit stop in the middle of the second stage. Crew chief Alan Gustafson called Elliott down pit road from a top-three position, wanting two tires to try to offset the advantage Hamlin and Bell had inherited, but the track position was too much to overcome and they settled for sixth.

ResultsFinNoDriverLapsDelta111Denny Hamlin407—219Chase Briscoe4070.310348Alex Bowman4070.40945Kyle Larson4070.667554Ty Gibbs4071.46569Chase Elliott4071.497723Bubba Wallace4071.655812Ryan Blaney4071.824917Chris Buescher4072.006106Brad Keselowski4072.223118Kyle Busch4072.2821245Tyler Reddick4072.5371371Michael McDowell4072.7461422Joey Logano4072.812153Austin Dillon4072.886162Austin Cindric4073.135177Justin Haley4073.1561820Christopher Bell4073.2801960Ryan Preece4074.0642010Ty Dillon4075.9922142John Hunter Nemechek4061 lap2238Zane Smith4061 lap2347Ricky Stenhouse Jr.4052 laps2435Riley Herbst4052 laps2534Todd Gilliland4052 laps2699Daniel Suarez4043 laps2743Erik Jones4043 laps2821Josh Berry4043 laps2941Cole Custer4034 laps3088Shane Van Gisbergen4007 laps314Noah Gragson393BTW3224William Byron393BTW331Ross Chastain382OUT3444JJ Yeley369OUT3577Carson Hocevar302OUT3651Cody Ware232OUT3716AJ Allmendinger221OUT