Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 FedEx Freight Toyota took the lead from Sam Hornish Jr. with 17 laps to go and survived a green-white-checkered restart to win the Gillette Fusion ProGlide 500 at Pocono (PA) Raceway over Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch, in a race that ended under caution. The victory was Hamlin’s fourth in nine races at the 2.5-mile speedway and his fourth of the 2010 season.
Hamlin gave Raybestos brand Brakes, a member of the Affinia Group family of brands, their SIXTH NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win in 2010. Cars using the strong, ultra-lightweight Raybestos brake packages have now won four superspeedway races and two of three short-track events.
Hamlin’s crew chief, Mike Ford, said that the key to winning the race was his driver’s ability to make up ground on restarts late in the race. “I think the key for us winning that race was two restarts that Denny made when we gave up track position,” Ford said. “You didn’t want to give up track position, but you needed fuel at some point. All strategies came into play. You had different tire strategies, fuel strategies, then you had guys on three different sequences of tires at the end of the day to add for a pretty eventful end to the race.”
Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&Ms Pretzel Candies Toyota started the day on the pole and took the early lead as he raced to the front at the green flag and led the first four laps of the day. Battling extremely tight conditions early on, Busch drifted back into the fourth position but when a competition caution came out on lap 15 the M&Ms crew managed to put him back out front for the restart on lap 20. Busch would be strong all day and go on to lead four different times for a total of 32 laps as crew chief Dave Rogers and the M&Ms team delivered a strong entry this weekend in Pocono.
Headed into Michigan, Hamlin has climbed two positions to third place in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship points standings. Hamlin stands 136 points behind leader Kevin Harvick and 117 behind second-place Kyle Busch.
For more information on the Raybestos Sprint Cup braking system, or for questions on any Raybestos brand brake or chassis products, visit www.raybestos.com or call (800) 323-0354.
