Denny Hamlin claimed a convincing victory at Air Guard 400 in Richmond International Raceway. It was Hamlin's 6th victory of the season giving him a 60 points bonus for the 2010 Chase for the Sprint Cup.Hamlin demonstrated a strong challenge from Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch and followed by Jimmie Johnson in 3rd. These 3 drivers appears to be the strongest contenders for the title as they have collected 3 top chazse seeds and the most of victorious point bonus during the Sprint Cup season.
All Bowyer needed to clinch the Chase was to finish 28th, even if Ryan Newman, his closest pursuer, had won the race and led the most laps. As it turned out, Newman finished 11th without any further success. In fact Clint Bowyer secured a 11th place in the Chase with a sixth-place run behind Joey Logano and Marcos Ambrose. But Bowyer showed that he merely wasn't going to be satisfied with just making the Chase. Having a stout car he led 33 laps of the race and seemed to be strong enough even to win the race as well.
"I'm very excited for our race team to make the Chase. I'm very excited for RCR. After the year we had last year, to get all three cars back in the Chase -- after none of us being in the Chase last year -- feels really good. As happy as I am to make the Chase, I was frustrated with the finish. We were a second-place car and made an attempt to pass Denny a couple of times and slipped clear to sixth.""
Biffle latest results left him 12th but he actually secured his chase entry on Lap 48, when Jason Leffler became the first driver to drop out of the race. That guaranteed Biffle at least a 42nd-place finish. Biffle finished 32nd, five laps back.
Juan Montoya, A.J. Allmendinger, Kevin Harvick and pole-sitter Carl Edwards completed the top 10. Oval Rookie Mattias Ekstrom had a trouble free race finishing 331st 4 laps down the winner of the race but proved delivering a satisfying performance.
It was a confident Hamlin who returned to victory lane appearing stronger than ever for the Chase races after.
"It's been an up-and-down year, but there's been a lot of ups, and obviously we're going to enter this Chase No. 1. It means a lot to this whole race team. A lot of people bashed this race team about 'can't finish this, and can't finish that.' But we've got the most wins, and hopefully that's going to carry us for the 10 weeks in the Chase. At this point, I think we can win at all of 'em."
Hamlin, who led 251 of the 400 laps of the race he conserved his tires after a green-flag pit stop on Lap 327 and pulled away from Busch slightly in the closing laps. He crossed the finish line .537 seconds ahead of his teammate. If Kyle could have taken the win then there would have been a rare 3 top tie in the chase seed between Hamlin, Kyle Busch and Jimmie johnson as all 3 of them would have scored 5 victories.
Hamlin commented about his team-mate:
"He made a heck of a charge. Luckily for me, it was a teammate, because anyone else probably would have moved us. I knew we had to run a certain distance no matter what. If he passed me with 30 to go, I still had 30 laps to go on those tires. I needed to make do with what I had, and I was just patient with the tires."
In the end, though, nobody could threat Hamlin, who won at Richmond for the second consecutive year.
The 12 drivers qualified for the 2010 Chase for the Sprint Cup race are:
| 1. Kevin Harvick | 7. Jeff Burton | 2. Kyle Busch | 8. Matt Kenseth | 3. Jeff Gordon | 9. Denny Hamlin | 4. Carl Edwards | 10. Kurt Busch | 5. Jimmie Johnson | 11. Clint Boywer | 6. Tony Stewart | 12. Greg Biffle |
Last season Hamlin's victory at Richmond pushed him thick into the championship hunt, challenging Johnson for the first few races until a mix of mechanical problems and mental lapses took him out of contention. This year, he's hoping to ride the momentum to his first career championship.
Johnson knows Hamlin is lurking.
"Maybe I took for granted how well Denny ran last year, that he would just be there [in contention]. That's been the reality to me, that he's going to be one of the guys to race for it."
But Johnson is mostly focused on his own Hendrick Motorsports team and what he's got to do to continue his reign.
"My guys are ready, I'm ready, we have got our mojo back and we are looking forward to it,"
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
