Goody's Cool Orange 500 Race Review

Martinsville Speedway -- 03/30/08

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Monday Mar 31 2008 12:29am

Despite near-freezing temperatures in Martinsville Sunday, Denny Hamlin turned lemons to lemonade, parlaying a pit road miscue into an emotional victory on his home track.

Hamlin took the lead on Lap 207 from Jimmie Johnson, but six laps later when a caution came out, there was uncertainty on the No. 11 team about pit strategy. "When we took the lead from the 48, the caution came out at a time where I thought, 'Sure, everyone's going to pit,'" said Hamlin after the race. "(My crew chief) says, 'If guys peel off behind you, go ahead and pit.' I saw the 48 or the 24 kind of make a move to the inside, so I assumed he was going to pit, and when he pulled back up on the racetrack, I just waited and waited and looked in my mirror to see if anybody else was going to pit and nobody did."

Hamlin had that sinking feeling as it became apparent that the leaders were staying out, but he was already past the pit road commitment line. When the race restarted five laps later, Johnson was in the lead with Gordon in second. Hamlin restarted 19th.

The mistake could have been insurmountable at a track like Martinsville, where passing is so difficult. Instead, Hamlin used it as motivation to get up on the wheel and race even harder. "At the end of this one, if that's what cost us the race, it was going to be on my shoulders. Frankly, I didn't want to have to answer those questions at the end of the race. So I just went out and won it."

Of course, they say it's easier to pass cars on pit road than it is on the track, and a late-race decision not to take tires also helped Hamlin, as the fast pit stop moved him up three spots and put him in position to compete for the lead.

Still, it seems funny that after 500 laps of hard-fought competition, the race came down to the same two drivers who led the field to green. Jeff Gordon started in P1 and Hamlin in P2, and the finishing order was simply flipped, with Hamlin the winner and Gordon in second.

Martinsville lived up to its short-track billing, with enough beatin' and bangin' to knock the fenders in on what seemed like half the field, if not more. Teams also contended with what Carl Edwards likes to call a wintry mix - freezing rain that muddied windshields and led to slick conditions for much of the race. "It looked like it was snowing out there," noted Jeff Gordon. "I've seen worse conditions, but never worse conditions when we were running green flag laps."

Though they didn't come away with a win, it was an impressive day overall for Hendrick Motorsports, with all four teams finishing in the top 10 - Gordon (2), Johnson (4), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (6), and Casey Mears (7). Junior, Jimmie and Jeff were the top three lap leaders, combining to lead 371 of 500 laps. Earnhardt Jr., the overall lap leader, blamed a long green flag run toward the end of the race with hurting his chance for victory. "That was the longest green flag run we had had on tires today - that last one. I ran too hard at the start of it and used up my stuff a little bit and didn't have any tires at the end to hold them guys off."

Overall, there were six Chevy's in the top 10, including Gordon (2), Jeff Burton (3), Johnson (4), Earnhardt Jr. (6), Casey Mears (7) and Clint Bowyer (10). Race winner Hamlin and teammate Tony Stewart were the only Toyotas in the top 10 - Stewart finished 5th - while Jamie McMurray and Carl Edwards finished 8th and 9th for Ford. Juan Pablo Montoya was the highest finishing Dodge driver at 13th.

Kyle Busch, the points leader heading into the race, had a number of struggles including a mishap with brother Kurt, trouble on pit road, and a mechanical issue involving the rear gears. Busch finished 38th and fell four spots in the standings to fifth. Greg Biffle, who had been second in points, had to start from the rear of the field after an engine change and finished 20th, falling to third in the standings.

Denny Hamlin's win boosted him eight spots in the points to seventh. Jeff Gordon climbed five spots to ninth, while Jeff Burton took over the points lead. Burton is now 39 points ahead of Richard Childress teammate Kevin Harvick, who finished 12th at Martinsville and moved to second in the standings.

Regan Smith in the No. 01 car for DEI was the highest-finishing rookie at 14th and is also the highest rookie in the standings, moving up five spots to 34th - safely out of the go-or-go-home category for next week's race in Texas.