Fort Worth, Texas (March 31, 2019) – It wasn’t a perfect day for Denny Hamlin and his team at Texas, but perseverance made it a winning day as Hamlin won his second Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of the season at Texas Motor Speedway.
“We had a great car all day,” said Hamlin. “Just a bunch of hiccups in the middle of it. We were fast enough to overcome everything that kind of got thrown at us.”
Those hiccups included missing pit road while running on fumes and then being penalized for speeding on his pit stop in Stage 1 and in the final stage, he incurred an uncontrolled tire penalty.
“Our car was really, really fast, but I was just beating my head on the steering wheel thinking we were going to finish bad with a really fast car,” said Hamlin. “Chris (Gabehart, crew chief for Hamlin) did a really great job of encouraging me.”
Kansas native Clint Bowyer finished second after failing to move past the first round of qualifying. Daniel Suarez finished third, followed by Erik Jones and Jimmie Johnson.
Hamlin joins Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski as drivers with two wins this season.
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series returns to Bristol this weekend.
April 1, 2019