It was Denny Hamlin's day in the sun.
Taking advantage of changing conditions Sunday at Kansas Speedway, Denny Hamlin held off Martin Truex Jr. the final 30 laps to win the STP 400, his second victory of the season, his first at the 1.5-mile track and the 19th of his career.
The victory was the 199th for cars bearing the No. 11, breaking a tie for the all-time lead with the No. 43, made famous by Richard Petty, who drove to 192 of his record 200 wins with that car number.
After a late round of green-flag pit stops put all the contending cars on the same sequence, the sun broke through the clouds for the first time all afternoon and changed the complexion of the race.Jimmie Johnson finished third, followed by Roush Fenway Racing teammates Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle. Truex moved into second place in the Sprint Cup Series standings behind Biffle, who leads by 15 points.
To that point, Truex had been dominant, having led 173 laps, but the changing conditions made Truex's Toyota "wrecking loose" in the words of the driver. Hamlin passed Truex for the lead through Turn 4 on Lap 237 and began to pull away, with Johnson pursuing from the third position.
To Hamlin, the sunlight was a welcome game-changer.
"Whether it was coincidence or not, our car definitely seemed like, [relative] to the field, was better once the sun came out," Hamlin said. "I felt like our car lost a lot of grip when the sun came out, but I guess a lot of guys did when that happened. I felt like all day I was behind the No. 56 [Truex], and his car looked so superior to the field.
"We just needed some kind of change -- weather or adjustments or something to get where he was at -- and we kind of got both of them. In overcast conditions, the cars run a little bit tighter, the grip level's higher in the race car, and it's more of a track-position type race. When the sun's out, the drivers, in my opinion, are more prominent.
"You move around, find the grip, do things in the car to make up for what you don't have. The slicker the conditions are, the better it tends to [be] for our race team. Luckily, we had that run in sunshine."
As clouds covered the sun once again, however, Truex began to close on Hamlin and widen his advantage on Johnson. With 10 laps left, Truex trailed Hamlin by .772 seconds. Five laps later, Truex had closed to .489 seconds behind.
Truex tried to dive beneath Hamlin in Turn 3 twice in the final three laps but couldn't stick the pass.
"Desperation," Truex said wryly. "I was a little bit faster than Denny at the end, but he was running against the wall right where I needed to be, and I was just trying to gain a little bit of ground.
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