Hamlin claims victory at Chicagoland

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[September 21, 2015]   By Amanda Vincent, The Sports Xchange
  
 JOLIET, Ill. -- Denny Hamlin claimed his second win of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season at Chicagoland Speedway on Sunday by taking the victory in the MyAFibRisk.com 400.

It was the first of the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup championship postseason.

Hamlin's Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Carl Edwards finished second, Kurt Busch was third, Ryan Newman fourth, and a third JGR driver, Matt Kenseth, rounded out the top five.

The yellow flag waved for the sixth and final time with six laps to go, erasing a 3.5 seconds lead by Busch. Busch, Jeff Gordon and Hamlin stayed out while everyone else on the lead lap pitted for new tires. After battling Gordon for second on the restart, Hamlin took the lead from Busch. Gordon dropped outside the top 10 by the checkered flag.

Hamlin went a lap down early in the race, spinning after contact with Jimmie Johnson on lap two. Edwards and Busch also fell off the lead lap in the first half of the race. Edwards went a lap down because of a pit road speeding penalty just past lap 50 of the 267-lap race. Busch went down a lap on lap 87 after making slight impact with a retaining wall, cutting down tires. All three drivers stayed out to take wave-arounds during a lap-122 caution to get back on the lead lap and benefitted from another yellow flag a few laps later.

After getting back on the lead lap and on the same pit sequence as the other front-runners, Busch was in position to take the lead from his brother, Kyle Busch, with 46 laps to go. Inside the final 20 laps, Kyle Busch lost second to Gordon.

Kyle Busch dominated the first half of the race, leading 93 laps between taking the lead on lap 46 and losing the lead to Jeff Gordon on a restart following a lap 137 caution. Gordon gave up the lead on lap 185 at the start of a green-flag pit cycle. When the yellow flag waved in the middle of the cycle, Gordon pitted again and restarted sixth while Kyle Busch and Kurt Busch restarted on the front row.

Kevin Harvick had started on the pole, but lost the lead to Martin Truex Jr. on a restart following the first caution that came out on lap two for an incident between Denny Hamlin and A.J. Allmendinger. Truex led 39 laps before Busch took over command of the race.

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After the first caution, the race ran green for 117 laps before the second yellow flag on lap 122. During the lengthy green-flag run, Kyle Busch managed to put all but 12 cars a lap down.

Kevin Harvick ran second to Kyle Busch through most of the long green-flag run early in the race, but Harvick and Jimmie Johnson made contact on a restart following the third caution of the race around the halfway point of the 267-lap event. As a result, Harvick suffered a tire rub and slammed into the wall, bringing out the fourth yellow flag on lap 137. Harvick headed to the garage after the incident.

NOTES: Kyle Larson pulled NASCAR triple-duty at Chicagoland Speedway, running the Camping World Truck Series race and Xfinity Series race, in addition to Sunday's Sprint Cup Series race. He ran out of gas in the closing laps of both the truck and Xfinity races. ... Sprint Cup Series drivers Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth finished first and second in the Xfinity Series race at Chicagoland on Saturday. ... Both the No. 2 Team Penske Ford team of Brad Keselowski and the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team of Dale Earnhardt Jr. made pit crew personnel changes in the days leading up to Sunday's race. ... Keselowski won last year's race at Chicagoland Speedway.

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