Hamlin Wins at Kansas

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.

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.