Hamlin wins Aaron’s 499

Denny Hamlin won a wreck-filled race at Talladega Superspeedway this afternoon in the Aaron’s 499. The last time the Sprint Cup Series visited Talladega before this weekend, we never saw ‘the big one’ that typically accompanies restrictor plate racing. However, today we saw two different big wrecks and several other cautions that took out a lot of our drivers we picked to win the race. That is just restrictor plate racing and part of the gamble. By the end of the day, one of the drivers we noted in our newsletter earlier in the week, Denny Hamlin captured his first restrictor plate win while proving his domination during speedweeks earlier this year at Daytona was no mere fluke.

As far as the on track activity, the first ‘big one’ took place at lap 137. Brad Keselowski, racing 6 laps down, appeared to just get loose and lose the car in the middle of the pack. The end result was a 14 car pileup that knocked out contenders Jeff Gordon, Trevor Bayne, Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, and others. If that was not bizarre enough, six-time Sprint Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson also got loose and lost control of the car amidst the lead group of cars. While Johnson got away mostly unscathed, cars piled up behind him which took many more contending racecars such as Kurt Busch, Joey Logano, David Ragan, and others. Ragan especially was having another impressive restrictor plate showing before the incident.

Those two incidents alone nearly took out half the field including the majority of our official free picks to win the race. However cautions would remain the story in the closing laps bringing out 3 different cautions in the last 14 laps of the race. The final caution waived midway through the final lap as Denny Hamlin led Greg Biffle and Clint Bowyer down the backstretch ruining a potential exciting finish. Still, credit has to be given to Hamlin and the #11 team. After nearly sweeping speedweeks at Daytona, Hamlin displayed some surprisingly strong plate racing skills in the late stages of the race by taking the lead away from and holding off Greg Biffle who seemingly dominated the event by leading 58 laps.

Next week the Sprint Cup Series returns to prime time on Saturday night with a visit to Kansas Speedway. If Kansas can present anywhere near the type of excitement we witnessed two weeks ago at Richmond on a Saturday night, we should be in store for quite a show.

Aaron’s 499 Finishing Order: