Denny Hamlin Wins At Pocono, Grabs 2nd Victory Of The Season (7-16-23)
By: Becca Cottingham Quimby
Headline Photo Credit: Kathryne Rubright-USA Today
We head to Pocono Speedway and what is known as the tricky triangle. This is the first weekend where rain has so far not been an issue for the cup series. William Byron and Martin Truex Jr will bring us to green. The track is hot and slick and JJ Yeley will become the first car that has a big issue. He will lose the rear of the car and make contact with the wall. We will get back to racing and Joey Logano will take over the lead. This caution threw different strategies into play. Some teams decided to put it while others decided not to. Then close to the end another set of strategies where other drivers decided to hit the pit road before the pit road will close to put them upfront. Joey Logano will win stage one.
William Byron and Kyle Larson will bring us back to green as we start stage two. We get four and five wide. With four and five wide racing we see Joey Logano wreck after being bounced around. Then Daniel Suarez was also in it and made hard contact with the wall. It appears once they get Joey’s tires changed then he should continue without an issue. Where Daniel Suarez could need multiple repairs or done for the day. We get started again from the caution and Austin Dillon then gets spun. He has issues getting it fired back up. Joey Logano comes off pit road but his car still is not fixed. However, the damage clock is almost out. His car will ultimately end up behind the wall as well. We will try another restart and Kyle Larson will then scrape the wall. This did not do a lot of damage as he seemed to have scraped the wall squarely. It seems that the accidents were not over for stage two. Kyle Larson made his way to the front and then Christopher Bell spins and brings out a caution. This will end the stage under caution with Kyle Larson winning.
With the number of wrecks we have had leading to stage three there is no telling what may happen. We had multiple drivers who decided to stay out between the stages. There are about thirteen drivers who decided to stay out. They will need to stop and get fuel at some point. This gives them the initial position. To hopefully keep them out of any crashes that may happen. We then will get a crash for Austin Dillion. He feels like contact was made by Tyler Reddick. This had him hitting the wall hard and will end his day early. Most drivers opt to come down and get fuel and some kind of combination of tires. Before Austin exited the track he did throw his helmet at Tyler Reddick. This will more than likely be reviewed by NASCAR to see if be breaking any rules. We get back to racing and then another caution happens for Chase Briscoe which brings us to under twenty to go. Austin Cindric got caught speeding on pit road and will have to go to the rear. Corey Lajoie also passed the pace car so he was held a lap. We hardly get back to racing again and there is yet another caution for Alex Bowman. He believes Denny Hamlin spun him, but looking at the video he was already loose and there was no real contact between the two. This also brings us to another restart and another possible chance of a crash. Denny Hamlin makes a move almost exactly like he did last year to Ross Chastain but this time to Kyle Larson. Justin Hayley has an accident which brings us back to caution. Kyle Larson shows his displeasure under caution to Denny Hamlin. Both teams disagree with what happened. This will lead us to a green-white-checkered at the end. Everything is going well with Denny Hamlin racing with the win, however, Ryan Preece has crashes and stalls. This leads to a very late caution with Denny Hamlin leading at the time of caution. Denny Hamlin will win at Pocono with the entire crowd booing him.
