By: Pete Pistone – MRN
HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Denny Hamlin ended his season with a trip to Victory Lane taking the win in Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series season finale Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
While Jimmie Johnson was celebrating his sixth Sprint Cup Series championship after his ninth place finish, Hamlin savored his 23rd series win and first of 2013.
“We came here and tested a month or so ago, a few weeks ago, hit on something that was really good for us,” Hamlin said after the win. “You just look at the small victories. That’s all I could do, is take pride in the small victories that we had here and there, knowing we were getting a little bit better each week.”
Hamlin is hoping to use the successful ending to the season as a springboard to a better performance in the new year.
“Now everyone is starting over clean again in 2014,” he said. “For me, when you come back after missing four or five races, one or two bad finishes, it was, My Chase hopes are over. You’re kind of racing for nothing really. It’s hard to find the motivation to perform at 100% when you’re trying to find yourself, trying to figure out what feel you need, really when you feel like you’re not racing for anything.”
Hamlin had to outduel his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Matt Kenseth and Dale Earnhardt Jr. who finished second and third after a torrid battle in the closing laps.
Kenseth’s second place finish left him short of trying to wrestle the title from Johnson but he was still proud of what was accomplished in his first year with JGR.
“Obviously it’s been a great year, best year I’ve ever had,” said Kenseth.
“Had a lot of fun racing over at Joe Gibbs Racing. I’m really happy for Denny getting that win. Think that will help us all with some momentum over the off season. Really enjoyed our year.”
But even with a career high seven victories and an amazingly consistent season, Kenseth tipped his cap to the remarkable effort of Johnson’s championship campaign.
“Jimmie and that team are obviously unbelievable,” he said. “Never seen anything like this in the sport and probably will never see anything like it again. It’s amazing with as tight as the rules are, multi car teams, information sharing, and all that stuff. It’s amazing they can figure out how to do that year after year.”
Earnhardt Jr. had the crowd on its feet during his two stints at the front of the field but couldn’t hold on before finally falling back to his third place finish.
“It’s a little bit disappointing,” said Earnhardt, who ended the Chase with another strong finish after starting the playoffs with an engine failure at Chicagoland Speedway. “We had such a good car and couldn’t capitalize. It was just real hard to get by those guys at the end. They were protecting their position and Matt was working hard to get points. We beat and banged a little bit; it was fun racing.”
Martin Truex Jr. and Clint Bowyer rounded out the top five.
Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Johnson and Kevin Harvick completed the first ten finishers.
There were a couple of anxious moments in the 36th race of the season including one with championship implications.
A restart on lap 194 saw the field get jumbled up running into turn one with Kenseth making contact with Johnson after leader Jeff Gordon seem to stumble and stack up the field.
Johnson received some damage to the front of his car but was able to get to pit road for repairs under caution on lap 206 and able to dodge any additional challenges from the incident.
Paul Menard also suffered damage in the earlier restart that didn’t rear its head until several laps later when he had a tire go down. As he pulled down pit road a fire broke out that eventually blew out his tire with a thundering explosion.
“Something happened on the restart where everyone checked up and we had some right-rear damage,” said Menard. “The tire went down and we had a bunch of rubber wrapped around the axle. We pitted a couple times to try to fix it and couldn’t get it all. Then it started on fire and blew the wheel off it. That was pretty damn crazy.”
Overall eight caution flags for 37 laps slowed the race. There were 22 lead changes among eight different drivers.
