Denny Hamlin highlights why winners can afford to take risks

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — What does having a race victory and a virtually guaranteed spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup mean?

It means this — with 25 laps to go in a race and the leader firing off into the sunset, it’s OK to shove your way between two other victory contenders and create a dangerous three-wide logjam in a turn.

This is what Denny Hamlin did in the closing laps of Saturday night’s GoBowling.com 400 at Kansas Speedway.

It did not end well.

There was no blatant contact, but Hamlin’s bold move — trying to put his car into a space it might have fit with a little grease on each side — disturbed the air between the cars of Brad Keselowski and Kyle Larson, leading to the night’s big wreck.

Keselowski lost control, as did Hamlin. Larson got pushed into the outside wall. Joey Logano, trailing the accident, was an innocent victim as he sailed into the area.

Kyle Busch, far ahead of the wreck in first place, rolled along blissfully to the win.

In the aftermath, Hamlin said he drove over the edge because he holds the Chase card, and Keselowski, who also has a win (two, in fact), understood.

“Yeah, I think that’s where everybody is that’s won a race,” Keselowski said.

Hamlin, who won the season-opening Daytona 500, offered no apologies.

“I was going in there three-wide,” he said. “I wasn’t letting off, and the 42 (Larson) was just too close up there. It wasn’t his fault by any means, but we were both trying to drive in there to clear each other, and I just got loose. There was no contact, but both me and the 2 (Keselowski) got loose there.

“I was just going for it. I’ve got the win, and that’s part of this format is going for it, and that’s what we did.”

Considering Busch’s strength late in the race, it’s doubtful that any of the drivers in the crash could have caught him if they had avoided the melee. But they were pushing, and pushing hard, on a night when there wasn’t a lot of competition at the front — thanks largely to a dominant run by Martin Truex Jr., whose stellar evening ultimately was ruined on pit road.

Next: Dover, where drivers still looking for wins will again mix with drivers who need one, creating the potential for anxiety at one of the sport’s fastest one-mile tracks.

Follow Hembree on Twitter @mikehembree

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