Sweet Sixty in Sin City

Denny Hamlin celebrates his win in the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. (Photo: NKP)

South Point 400: Denny Hamlin scored the win in Sunday's South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The win was Hamlin's sixth of the year, 60th of his legendary career, and solidified his spot in the round of four to fight for a championship in Phoenix in a few weeks' time. Hamlin was a top five car all day, starting the day on the pole, running around the lead spot all day, and finishing fourth in both stages. However, until a late race incident, it appeared he would have to settle for a top five as opposed to a win. After that caution, and one more on the subsequent restart, Hamlin drove the closing laps of his life and stole the win from JGR teammate Chase Briscoe.

Overall, the race was solid. Not a barn burner, but a respectable race with just enough pit strategy and tire wear to keep the competitors honest from green flag to checkered flag. And throughout much of the day, it appeared it was going to be an HMS driver that landed in victory lane: Kyle Larson dominated the day, leading 129 laps, and William Byron (before a series of unfortunate events) had the lead late. The JGR cars of Hamlin and Briscoe hung around the top five most of the day, keeping the HMS drivers honest, but short of anything crazy happening, one of those HMS drivers was going to cruise to victory. Then, as fate would have it, something crazy did happen. We can argue and debate the details until the cows come home, but what happened happened. Ty Dillon, pitted late in the run, was in the same lane as a blazing fast William Byron. Byron, who didn't realize what was happening and how slow the 10 car was until it was too late, drove straight into Dillon, causing a massive wreck and debris field that also caught up John Hunter Nemechek. That chaos bunched the field back up late in the going, and on the ensuing restart, we encountered another multi-car ruckus that led to a late race shootout for the win. On that final restart of the day, Hamlin went all out, pedal to the metal, get out of my way, I'm in winning mode. He stormed to the front, blew past his JGR teammate of Briscoe, and cruised to his 60th career NASCAR Cup Series win. This is, in my opinion, one of Denny's most impressive wins and sets him nicely for the title in Phoenix, as he has multiple weeks to look ahead and prepare for the shot at capturing his first NASCAR Cup Series championship.

Next up, we head to Talladega Superspeedway with all three national touring series back in action! The Craftsman Truck Series gets things kicked off today (Friday) at 4 p.m. EST on FS1 with the Love's Travel RV Stop 225. The Xfinity Series hits the track tomorrow at 4 p.m. EST on The CW with the United Rentals 250. And the Cup Series headlines the weekend on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. EST with the YellaWood 500 on NBC.

Talladega Picks: Trucks = Corey Lajoie

Xfinity = Jesse Love

Cup = Bubba Wallace