1. Richmond reversal and the restart in focus
Everything changed in the blink of an eye at Richmond, and instead of Martin Truex Jr. claiming win No. 1 of 2024, his teammate Denny Hamlin doubled up.
Given his consistent blazing speed through seven races — Truex Jr. leads the series in both average finish (8.1) and average running position (7.2) — we probably would’ve been talking about the No. 19’s potential championship favorite status had things gone slightly differently at the end of Richmond and Bubba Wallace never makes contact with Kyle Larson to send the race to NASCAR Overtime.
Instead, MTJ left Virginia as “mad as hell” as anybody we’ve seen since his former Big Three member Kevin Harvick at Bristol Motor Speedway that one time, and his teammate Denny Hamlin got to celebrate with the trophy in his home state.
The way Richmond’s final moments played out was fascinating, and it added just so many wrinkles and percolating story lines to follow from here on out, with some of them potentially sparking back up this weekend at Martinsville.
Hamlin and Truex have been racing each other in the Cup Series for nearly two decades, much of that time as teammates or as part of a technical alliance; but will Truex feel like he’s “owed” after this? Will we see different restart-zone tactics late in races moving forward based on a strategy that clearly worked for Hamlin and saw one of Truex’s more dominant runs fade to fourth on the results sheet? Wallace joked to Larson on pit road that “whatever’s coming my way, I expect it” after spinning the No. 5. Larson isn’t quite the retaliatory type and it was a pleasant exchange, but this isn’t their first run-in and likely would’ve been a different conversation if Larson didn’t rebound to finish third … with another short track on tap, could something be coming Wallace’s way?
Bigger picture, Hamlin has now won two of the past three races and seems to be the driver from the “old guard” most suited to doing whatever is necessary to get wins in the Next Gen era so far. Past champions Truex, Brad Keselowski, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano and Kyle Busch — some of the biggest names in the sport — are riding a combined 235-race winless streak. There’s seven Cup titles between them and yet they’re consistently getting beat by the driver who notoriously has zero.
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