Denny Hamlin overcame a bad miss of the pit road entrance to chase down Martin Truex Jr. with three laps left to win the Southern 500 at Darlington (South Carolina) Raceway on Sunday night.
Hamlin checked up after sliding by the entrance with 54 laps left and fell behind Truex by 20 seconds. But Hamlin slowly reeled in Truex and passed him when his rival brushed the wall and got a flat tire.
Hamlin swept throwback weekend at Darlington after winning the Xfinity race Saturday. Truex won the first two stages, clinching NASCAR’s regular-season championship and gaining the No. 1 seed heading into the playoffs in two weeks.
Kyle Busch was second, followed by brother Kurt Busch, Austin Dillon and Erik Jones.
Hamlin led 124 laps and looked as if he was easily on the way to a second Southern 500 after winning in 2008. Then inexplicably, Hamlin missed the entrance and seemingly threw the race to the ever-steady Truex.
“We can still do this,” Hamlin’s crew chief Mike Wheeler told his driver after the miscue.
So Hamlin started the comeback. He got up to Truex’s bumper with three laps before moving low around lapped traffic to take the lead. Truex rubbed the wall, blew his right front tire and stumbled home in eighth.
“Sometimes it’s just not your night,” Truex said. “Tonight wasn’t our night.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished 22nd — the same as how he started — in his final time racing at Darlington. On Friday, the track rechristened one of its suite buildings in turn three as “Earnhardt Towers” in honor of Dale Jr. and his late father Dale Earnhardt, who won nine times at Darlington.
Matt Kenseth was sixth, Ryan Newman seventh, then Truex, polesitter Kevin Harvick and Jamie McMurray rounding out the top 10.
IndyCar
Alexander Rossi overcame a mechanical malfunction on pit road to notch a big victory. IndyCar points leader Josef Newgarden wasn’t so lucky.
Rossi used a stroke of good fortune to win the IndyCar Grand Prix at The Glen in Watkins Glen, New York from the pole, leading just over half of the 60-lap race and easily holding off four-time series champion Scott Dixon over the closing laps at Watkins Glen International for his second career victory. His first one came last year in the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500.
“Today I was finally able to prove what I’ve been talking about the past month, two months, in terms of the step forward Andretti Autosports has taken,” said Rossi, who has five straight top-six finishes. “We have the package in the car and the people to be at the front. Just had things go wrong and we weren’t able to execute fully.”
The win was the 57th Indy car triumph for Andretti Autosport and the team’s first win at Watkins Glen. It was somewhat overshadowed, though, by the sudden fall by Newgarden after a costly error in the pits that relegated him to an 18th-place finish.
Dixon’s second-place finish for Chip Ganassi Racing erased most of Newgarden’s 31-point lead and left the four-time champion just three points behind heading to the season finale at Sonoma next week, which is worth double points.
Newgarden, who has a series-high four wins, took the championship lead for the first time in his career after his win at Mid-Ohio in late July. His victory last week at Gateway Motorsports Park over Penske teammate Simon Pagenaud was his third in four races and seemed to stamp him as the man to beat.
Then his lead in the standings vanished in a flash at Watkins Glen.
After taking his only lead of the day, Newgarden pitted with 15 laps to go around the 11-turn, 3.37-mile natural terrain road course. But he slammed the guard rail exiting the pits when his front tires locked up and he veered left into the blue steel barrier. He was hit from behind by Sebastien Bourdais, breaking part of the rear of the No. 2 Chevy. That brought out a caution and Newgarden had to pit again, his crew frantically working on the car as he fell two laps down.
NASCAR Trucks
Austin Cindic spun out leader Kaz Grala on the final lap and went on to win the NASCAR Camping World Truck race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario.
Racing on his 19th birthday, Cindric plowed into Grala in Turn 5 on the road course. Cindric earned a spot in the playoffs with his first career series victory. He started from the pole in Brad Keselowski Racing’s Ford and overcame a pit-road penalty.
Noah Gragson was second, and Grala recovered to finish third.
Justin Haley was fourth, followed by Ryan Truex, Johnny Sauter and Chase Briscoe.
Briscoe, Cindric’s Brad Keselowski Racing teammate, also wrapped by a playoff berth with a 75-point advantage over the cutoff spot. Christopher Bell, John Hunter Nemechek, Sauter, Matt Crafton and Grala also have qualified, with the final spot to be determined Sept. 15 in the in the regular-season finale at Chicagoland Speedway.
Formula 1
Lewis Hamilton won the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, Italy virtually unchallenged from pole position and moved ahead of Sebastian Vettel to take the lead in the drivers’ standings.
Hamilton finished nearly five seconds ahead of Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas while Vettel came third in his Ferrari, more than half a minute behind.
Hamilton now has 238 points, three more than Vettel with seven races remaining in what has developed into a riveting Formula One season.
Vettel had led the standings all season but Ferrari struggled in rainy qualifying conditions Saturday and couldn’t match Mercedes’ race pace, either, on a Monza circuit featuring long straights and high speeds better suited to Mercedes’ power.
NHRA
Jack Beckman won the Funny Car NHRA Traxxas Nitro Shootout at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway in Clermont, Indiana.
Beckman had a 3.952-second pass at 324.67 mph in a Dodge Charger R/T to beat Robert Hight in the final and earn $100,000 in the bonus event.
“Just getting in to the Shootout is incredibly difficult,” Beckman said. “That’s what makes it exciting, there’s a big litany of ways to make your way into the field but then there’s only one way to get the trophy; You’ve got to beat three of the baddest fuel cars on the planet in one day. There’s always something that makes this Traxxas final round eventful.”
In the regular event, Clay Millican (Top Fuel), Matt Hagan (Funny Car), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and Eddie Krawiec (Pro Stock Motorcycle) secured the No. 1 qualifying positions.
Millican raced to his second consecutive U.S. Nationals Top Fuel No. 1 qualifier, his third of the season, and eighth of his career. He had a track elapsed-time record pass of 3.663 at 329.10 on Saturday.
Hagan powered his Dodge Charger R/T to a 3.799 at 338.77 for his fourth No. 1 qualifier of the season, 30th of his career and fourth at the U.S. Nationals. His run from Friday’s first qualifying session set both ends of the Lucas Oil Raceway track record.
Anderson secured his 90th Pro Stock No. 1 qualifier, third of the season and fifth at Indianapolis with the 6.561 at 210.11 in his Chevrolet Camaro from Saturday.
In Pro Stock Motorcycle, Krawiec rode to his third No. 1 qualifier of the season, 36th of his career and second at U.S. Nationals with his 6.822 at 196.62 on Saturday.