Hamlin Wins at Kansas

Originally written for CLNS Media.

Denny Hamlin won the Super Start Batteries 400 from Kansas Speedway on Thursday night for his fifth win of the season.

Hamlin had a fast car throughout the night, but had to chase down Kevin Harvick following the final restart.  After pulling away, Brad Keselowski slowly reeled Hamlin back in.

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Hamlin was able to hold off Keselowski over the final 12 laps to pick up his second-consecutive Kansas victory.

Hamlin said he was able to make his car work where Harvick’s couldn’t to get the win.

“I saw [Harvick] getting loose,” Hamlin said.  “Usually when you’re loose, you aren’t able to run up high, and that was the benefit for us to be able to get that momentum going.”

Hamlin said he feels he has a perfect team that can help him win any weekend.

“We can win any given week and that’s something that’s really hard to come by,” Hamlin said.  “I don’t know if we had the best car; we definitely had a Top 3 car all day, but just went and got it there at the end.”

Keselowski took four tires during the final caution while Hamlin only took two, but Keselowski ran out of laps to chase Hamlin down.

Keselowski said the Joe Gibbs Racing cars were too good on restarts, which ended up being the difference.

“We were pretty equal; [Hamlin] had two tires, I had four tires, but he was just really strong on restarts,” Keselowski said.  “He and the Gibbs cars could pull everybody by about a car length on the restarts, and they did a great job taking advantage of it.”

“Thought [we were] even on the racetrack, just a little bit behind on the restarts.”

Unofficial results:

1. Denny Hamlin

2. Brad Keselowski

3. Martin Truex Jr.

4. Kevin Harvick

5. Erik Jones

6. Aric Almirola

7. Cole Custer

8. Alex Bowman

9. Kurt Busch

10. William Byron

11. Kyle Busch

12. Chase Elliott

13. Tyler Reddick

14. Clint Bowyer

15. Ty Dillon

16. Michael McDowell

17. Matt Kenseth

18. Daniel Suarez

19. John Hunter Nemechek

20. Ryan Blaney

21. Corey LaJoie

22. JJ Yeley

23. Christopher Bell

24. Quin Houff

25. Josh Bilicki

26. Garrett Smithley

27. Austin Dillon

28. Ryan Newman

29. Joey Gase

30. Brennan Poole

31. Reed Sorenson

32. Jimmie Johnson

33. Chris Buescher

34. Ryan Preece

35. Joey Logano

36. Matt DiBenedetto

37. Bubba Wallace

38. Timmy Hill

39. BJ McLeod

40. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

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