LAS VEGAS (AP) — Denny Hamlin returned to victory lane at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday for the first time since he lost the NASCAR championship four months ago.
Hamlin used his Las Vegas victory last October
to lock into NASCAR's championship-deciding finale three weeks later. He dominated last year's finale at Phoenix Raceway but the wrong call on the final pit stop cost him the title that has eluded the three-time Daytona 500 winner.What followed
was an emotional rollercoaster: Hamlin, as co-owner of 23XI Racing, was part of the winning team in a federal lawsuit against NASCAR last December. Weeks later, his father was killed in a fire that destroyed the home Hamlin purchased to thank his parents for getting him into NASCAR.
He returned for the start of his 21st season and went to victory lane with Tyler Reddick as the 23XI Racing driver won the Daytona 500 and then set a NASCAR record by winning the first three races of the year.
Most of the attention to 23XI co-owner Michael Jordan as Reddick won Daytona, Atlanta and Circuit of the Americas.
Hamlin did his part at Las Vegas to put himself back in the spotlight.
He overcome an early speeding penalty and drove from 31st through the field in a fairly dominating win for Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota. He led a race-high 134 laps for his 61st career Cup Series victory.
Toyota has won four of the first five races.
Hendrick Motorsports teammates Chase Elliott and William Byron finished second and third in Chevrolets; JGR drivers Christopher Bell and Ty Gibbs were fourth and fifth to give JGR three cars in the top-five.
It was the third consecutive top-five finish for Gibbs, who is a central figure in a federal lawsuit filed by JGR against former competition director Chris Gabehart. The two sides are back in court in North Carolina on Monday as JGR seeks a restraining order to stop Gabehart for working for rival Spire Motorsports.
Gabehart has said his time at JGR became untenable in part because of preferential treatment toward Gibbs, who is the grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs.
JGR alleges Gabehart stole proprietary information before he left the team, and had a non-compete clause that prevents him from joining another team. Gabehart claims JGR stopped paying him in November and the role he now has with Spire is completely different from what he did for Gibbs.
Gabehart was at the track Sunday with Spire, which at Las Vegas had its trucks parked next to the JGR trucks.
The Cup Series races Sunday at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina. Joe Gibbs Racing dominated at the track last year — Hamlin won in April and Chase Briscoe in August.
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