Sick Hamlin Wins Busch Series Race at Dover

The race was the slowest in Dover's Busch Series history with an average speed of just 85.198 mph, slowed by a record-tying 13 cautions.

Denny Hamlin won the RoadLoans.com 200, his fourth NASCAR Busch Series win of the season. Photo courtesy: doverspeedway.com

DOVER, Del. - Denny Hamlin almost didn't even start Saturday's RoadLoans.com 200 NASCAR Busch Series race at Dover International Speedway.

He wasn't feeling well, and took some IV fluids from the infield care center before the race. In fact, it got to the point where Kyle Busch was summoned from whatever he was doing to see if he might fit into Hamlin's car.

As it turned out, Hamlin decided to give it a go.

And what a go he gave it, winning the race on a sunny Saturday afternoon - although he probably wouldn't have minded it going a little more quickly.

The race was the slowest in Dover's Busch Series history with an average speed of just 85.198 mph, slowed by a record-tying 13 cautions for a record-setting total of 61 laps.

"I need a nap," Hamlin said upon jumping out of his car. "I hated to stay in it and maybe risk tomorrow, but I don't think I did. When a car runs good, you feel better, so I think this is a step in the right direction for us. I felt a lot better early than I did late."

Mayetta, NJ native Martin Truex, Jr., who won the Nextel Cup race here in June, finished second. He said Hamlin simply had the better car.

"[Our car] was OK, it wasn't great," Truex said. "To win here or in the Cup series you have to be great. Your car has to be about perfect. It looked like Denny had that today, and we were off just a little bit."

Late in the race, Hamlin came in under caution for four tires, while Truex stayed out to pick up track position.

"It was pretty cut and dry whether to pit or not pit, up until that last pit stop," Hamlin said. I told [crew chief Dave Rogers] that the last thing I wanted to do was lose because of tires, so we took them.

But Truex didn't think that was a factor in the race anyway.

"Denny was better than us on new tires," Truex said. "The best we were was on old tires, on really long runs, and it just didn't play out today. We couldn't run with Denny for 20 or 25 laps at least on new tires. As we ran we evened out, and that's why we stayed out. But if we'd gotten tires we still would have finished second."

The race dragged right off the hop, with the first caution coming out at lap 7 when David Ragan and Stanton Barrett tangled in turn 1.

Six more cautions followed before the race's halfway point, including one on lap 59 where Robby Gordon made contact with Tony Raines and spun him into the wall.

Upon exiting his car, Raines waited by the track for Gordon to come back around before throwing his helmet at Gordon's car.

Matt Kenseth recovered from an early accident to finish third. He was in the second altercation of the day on lap 12, a five-car wreck coming down the front stretch.

"Fortunately it didn't wreck the important parts of the body," Kenseth said. "It caved in the left side door but that didn't matter. It did cave the right rear quarter, which might be more important than the spoiler. But the guys did a good job making repairs and we got lucky on where we got hit."

It was Kenseth's ninth top-5 finish at Dover in the Busch Series, extending his own track record.

Hamlin wasn't sure exactly what his illness was.

"It's just around my throat area, it's real tender and I have a tough time even getting a pill down," he said. "It makes it a little hard to breathe, but for the most part it's a little bit of a head cold. I get hot and cold and just feel inadequate."

But while the cautions made the race longer, Hamlin actually felt they were a benefit.

"I was happy for the breaks," he said. "The longer the green flag went, the aches and pains started coming on. But when you have a car that's that good, you don't really think about it while you're in the race car. The cautions never really came when it was a bad time for us."

Although Busch wasn't needed, he stayed in Hamlin's pit box for the race.

At one point late in the day, Hamlin jokingly asked if Busch was still ready to drive.

"I think he saw how strong that car was and I'm sure he was chomping at the bit to get in it, being the racer that he is," Hamlin said. "I watch the guys pretty much every time down the track to see how they're doing, and when they're quiet I try to get them up a little, so that's what I did. But by that point, he wasn't getting in there."

Points leader Carl Edwards finished sixth. He had been right on Hamlin's bumper but got caught up behind a lapped car with 35 laps remaining.

"Unless Denny got a flat tire or decided he wanted to quit, he was going to win the race," Edwards said. "That car was awesome. It looked like our car felt the last time we were here."

Pole-sitter Greg Biffle was looking for his third Busch Series win at Dover, but had too much bad luck and had to settle for a ninth-place finish.

He was running in the top five when his crew lost control of a tire during a pit stop, sending him to the back of the field.

He'd crept back up to sixth when he cut a tire and had to make a green-flag pit stop around lap 115, sending him back two laps down.

"We beat ourselves on pit road today," Biffle said. "This crew has been phenomenal all season, gaining me spots on pit road and doing all kinds of stuff. Today was our off day. They just made a few mistakes, and we had to make it up on the track."

RACE NOTES

Raines was summoned to the NASCAR hauler after his helmet toss -- the meeting might include helmet-tossing lessons, as the helmet only hit Gordon's car on the bounce and then caught Reed Sorenson's car on the way back down the track.

Brad Keselowski was the top-finishing rookie, finishing seventh in just his seventh race with the U.S. Navy Chevrolet team.

Adding comments to these stories has been disabled. View the current sports stories Salem-News Sports