{"id":8367,"date":"2020-06-29T09:42:32","date_gmt":"2020-06-29T13:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonmotorsport.com\/?p=8367"},"modified":"2022-07-22T12:10:32","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T16:10:32","slug":"hamlin-pocono-350","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2020\/06\/29\/hamlin-pocono-350\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamlin Out-runs Darkness at Pocono"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you thought the Pocono 350 would make it to halfway, let alone the advertised distance, put your hand down because you&#8217;re lying.<\/p>\n<p>With the lightning hold before the NASCAR Cup Series went green and the 50-minute red flag for rain, combined with the lack of lights, it was all but certain that making it to the halfway mark would be a Herculean task.<\/p>\n<p>I even tweeted as much.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I think we&#39;re racing to halfway. We&#39;re running out of daylight and we&#39;re on our third caution in under 10 laps.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NASCAR?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#NASCAR<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Pocono350?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Pocono350<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Tucker White (@TuckerWhite94) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TuckerWhite94\/status\/1277377641453060097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 28, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>But then the final 50 laps ran caution-free. As the run went on, running to the end became an actual possibility.<\/p>\n<p>Working against that, however, was the diminishing sunlight. The sky turned darker shades of orange and red, as the race edged towards the 8:38 p.m. sunset.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kevin Harvick<\/strong> sat in the lead but pitted on Lap 94 for fuel. <strong>Denny Hamlin<\/strong> cycled to the lead.<\/p>\n<p>He built up a large enough gap that he pitted for four tires and fuel on Lap 119, and rejoined the race ahead of Harvick.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Martin\u00a0<\/strong><b>Truex Jr.<\/b> pitted from the lead with 16 laps to go and the lead cycled back to Hamlin.<\/p>\n<p>Whether the new tires, lap traffic or high-downforce package made the difference, ultimately, while Harvick closed in on Hamlin, he ran out of laps to catch him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was just hoping for no cautions, I knew we had the car,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I was just maintaining my gap right there and didn\u2019t want to make any mistakes like I did at Bristol and threw that win away. I just tried to work through the traffic as best I could and obviously Chris (Gabehart) is paying attention to strategy there and made the right call.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hamlin crossed the finish line to win for the 41st time in his NASCAR Cup Series career, breaking a tie with NASCAR Hall of Fame member,\u00a0<strong>Mark Martin<\/strong>,\u00a0for 19th on NASCAR&#8217;s all-time wins list.<\/p>\n<p>It was his sixth career victory at Pocono Raceway, which ties NASCAR Hall of Fame member,\u00a0<strong>Jeff Gordon<\/strong>, for most all-time wins at the Tricky Triangle. It&#8217;s also his fourth victory of the 2020 season.<\/p>\n<p>Hamlin leaves sixth in points, 69 back of Harvick.<\/p>\n<p>Main image credit:<br \/>\n<a id=\"Q2-oImHFQ8V3CfD122xfDg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/1253125132\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'Q2-oImHFQ8V3CfD122xfDg',sig:'vREGCGLuo_dD18U9tXulPDXrkPjYMIUBfzZEWznYyYs=',w:'594px',h:'395px',items:'1253125132',caption: true ,tld:'ca',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you thought the Pocono 350 would make it to halfway, let alone the advertised distance, put your hand down because you&#8217;re lying. With the lightning hold before the NASCAR Cup Series went green and the 50-minute red flag for rain, combined with the lack of lights, it was all but certain that making it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3353,"featured_media":8371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1664,3],"tags":[148,333,14,1269,371,1417,1415],"class_list":["post-8367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-nascar-cup-series","category-news","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-joe-gibbs-racing","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-2020","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-pocono-350","tag-pocono-raceway"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}