The Hamlin Heater
Great American Getaway 400: Denny Hamlin captured his fourth win of the 2026 season on Sunday afternoon after winning the Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway. It was Denny's eighth official win (ninth checkered flag) at Pocono Raceway, and Denny now takes sole possession of ninth on the NASCAR Cup Series all-time wins list. It was also Hamlin's third consecutive win, all coming from earning the pole - a Hamlin Heater we should all respect.
The race was typical Pocono. Not a lot of chaos, minimal attrition, and plenty of strategy and fuel mileage. Hamlin, after slipping a bit to start the race, charged to the lead and won stage one after a pretty straight-up first stage. Stage two presented the only real chaos of the day and allowed some additional strategy to come into play for the race. The chaos started on lap 42 when Zane Smith, after a hell of a move to pass two cars, got loose under Denny Hamlin off of turn one and spun out, slamming the inside wall and virtually ending the day for the 38 team. After we went back to green flag action, we had our big ruckus of the day when SVG washed up into Berry, allowing room for Austin Hill to try (miserably) to scoot past those two in turn three. With three cars battling for one spot on the track, they triggered the big one off of turn three and onto the front stretch, collecting a number of cars, with Brad Keselowski and the 6 team getting the worst of the deal. More pit stops and strategy emerged, and we saw a fun little mix-up to end stage two with Todd "the Toddfather" Gilliland earning the stage victory. Stage three, save for a debris caution due to Casey Mears losing an entire wheel and tire carcass, was mundane, fuel strategy Pocono. While it looked like Christopher Bell and the 20 team may have stolen one, they fell a little short with Hamlin retaking the lead with a handful of laps left. Even more unfortunate for the 20 team was that they completely ran out of fuel coming to the white flag and fell from 4th to 26th. Either way, once Denny was in the lead, he set sail and cruised to his 4th victory of the year and 3rd consecutive win. His Hamlin Heater continued as he chopped Tyler Reddick's point lead down to 19 points with eight races remaining in the regular season. Setting up what could be an elite battle for the regular season title and the top seed in the Chase for the Cup.
Next up, NASCAR makes history with its races at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego, California. This marks the first time NASCAR will race on an active military installation with all three series in action this weekend. The Craftsman Truck Series is the first wave of action on Friday at 7 p.m. EST on FS1 with the Navy 250. The O'Reilly Auto Parts Series deploys to the track on Saturday afternoon on The CW at 5 p.m. EST with the United Rentals Driven to Serve 250. The Cup Series goes to battle on Sunday afternoon on Amazon Prime with the Anduril 250 Race the Base at 4 p.m. EST.
Coronado Naval Base Picks:
Trucks = Parker Kligerman
NOAPS = Brent Crews
Cup = Shane Van Gisbergen
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