{"id":17966,"date":"2025-09-09T08:25:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T13:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/?p=17966"},"modified":"2025-09-09T08:25:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T13:25:00","slug":"denny-hamlin-captures-sundays-illinois-300","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/sports\/more-sports\/17966-denny-hamlin-captures-sundays-illinois-300\/","title":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin Captures Sunday&#8217;s Illinois 300"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-right\"><a href=\"javascript: window.print()\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_self\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-print-title\">Print<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>MADISON, Ill. \u2013 Joe Gibbs Racing flexed its muscle once again in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs\u2019 opening Round of 16 as Denny Hamlin captured Sunday\u2019s Illinois 300 before a sellout crowd at World Wide Technology Raceway.<\/p>\n<p>Hamlin provided an encore to teammate Chase Briscoe\u2019s win last week at Darlington Raceway with a strong performance of his own from the pole, giving Joe Gibbs Racing two of the automatic berths into the Round of 12 as a result of the consecutive victories.<\/p>\n<p>The win also had historical significance as Hamlin\u2019s 59th career victory and fifth of the season was the 200th in the Cup Series for JGR\u2019s engine manufacturer Toyota.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just had a nice solid day on pit road. No mistakes,\u201d said Hamlin, who finished runner-up at WWT Raceway the past two seasons. \u201cSome other guys had some issues and that allowed us to capitalize and win the race. That\u2019s what NASCAR has become now; it\u2019s such an execution race. \u2026 If you can do your job, like I did today then the wins will almost fall in your lap.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love coming to St. Louis,\u201d added winning team owner Joe Gibbs. \u201cLove coming to this part of the country. I spent five years here with the \u2018Cardiac\u2019 Cards chasing the football around and had a ball. Everybody treated us great, and I just really appreciate getting a chance to come here and win a race.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hamlin led four times for a race-high 75 of the 240 laps en route to a 1.62-second margin of victory over Briscoe. Playoff drivers swept the top-five finishing positions and seven of the top eight. Rounding out the top five were, in order, Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports and Team Penske teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano.<\/p>\n<p>Briscoe won the opening stage with Hamlin finishing third in the 45-lap segment. Bubba Wallace of 23XI Racing was sixth in that stage, but thrust himself into contention by winning the second one. He led 58 laps in the stage and that carried over early in the third, where he led the opening 15 laps, before fading to eighth.<\/p>\n<p>A strong side-by-side battle developed between Hamlin and Logano in the final stage before the leaders all needed to pit a final time in different cycles. RFK Racing\u2019s Brad Keselowski, who did not make the playoffs, was willing to gamble. He chose to stay out as the leader when the final caution waved on Lap 210 for a single-car incident in Turn 1 involving Ty Dillon.<\/p>\n<p>The 15th and final lead change came on the restart as Hamlin went to the inside of Keselowski and Briscoe to the outside. They both cleared Keselowski with Hamlin in the lead and Briscoe in tow. Hamlin quickly opened up a comfortable lead on the field as he led the final 25 laps en route to the win.<\/p>\n<p>Joe Gibbs Racing placed all three of its playoff drivers in the top 10 with Christopher Bell finishing eighth. The only non-playoff driver to finish among the top eight was Legacy Motor Club\u2019s John Hunter Nemechek, who finished sixth.<\/p>\n<p>Team Penske\u2019s Austin Cindric, who finished 19th, currently sits in the 12th and final transfer spot with just next week\u2019s race at Bristol Motor Speedway remaining in the Round of 16. He is 11 points ahead of Richard Childress Racing\u2019s Austin Dillon and 15 ahead of Trackhouse Racing rookie Shane van Gisbergen. Alex Bowman of Hendrick Motorsports is a distant 15th (-35) and Josh Berry of Wood Brothers Racing in 16th (-45).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MADISON, Ill. \u2013 Joe Gibbs Racing flexed its muscle once again in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs\u2019 opening Round of 16 as Denny Hamlin captured Sunday\u2019s Illinois 300 before a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-more-sports"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Denny Hamlin Captures Sunday&#039;s Illinois 300 - Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader, 979XFM and KJ Country 102.3<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/sports\/more-sports\/17966-denny-hamlin-captures-sundays-illinois-300\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Denny Hamlin Captures Sunday&#039;s Illinois 300 - 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