Denny Hamlin turned in a dominating performance Sunday at Michigan International Speedway for his 5th series win of the season!

Photo credit: Sheri Vegas

Hamlin led a whopping 123 of 200 laps Sunday afternoon for his second consecutive win and fifth in the past ten races. Who says 13 is an unlucky number. It marked Hamlin’s 13th career win recorded on June 13th.

“It’s a great accomplishment to win on so many different racetracks for us,” Hamlin said. “To be able to unload and know you’re going to be competitive for a race win week in and week out gives you a lot of confidence. For the first time really in my career, I feel like we’re at this place.”

“Statistically, this has been a pretty good run of tracks for us, the last 10,” Hamlin said. “It has been over the course of my career. You know, where we need to improve is those Chase racetracks. We felt like we made strides at Dover. You know, we kind of used that as a test session. To go from a two-lap-down non-competitive race to finishing in the top five getting ready for the Chase race there, we’re making strides at all of our worst racetracks. For me, you know, it seems like I used to go into every season thinking, We ought to get a couple wins, Martinsville, Pocono. Now it’s just show up and, hey, we can win. That to me is just a feeling I don’t think we’ve ever had before. I haven’t had it before.”

Fans were treated to long green flag runs which isn’t quite the norm. The final caution came out with 17 laps to go bringing the field back together, but Hamlin easily pulled away from Kasey Kahne and cruised to victory.

“I felt like our team did a good job,” runner-up Kahne said. “We didn’t lose 10 spots in the pits, I didn’t make mistakes.  Good feedback. The adjustments on the car were good. You know, we didn’t break any parts. The car stayed together. We just kind of had a lot of downs this year, and it was nice to put a full race together and actually feel like a Cup team, Cup driver.”

Polesitter Kurt Busch was strong from the start and led 60 laps himself. Busch finished 3rd.

“Denny Hamlin deserves all the credit,” Busch said. “He put on a good show. That team has been dominant. They are showing their strength. Then to race Kasey Kahne, he is in a Ford. The winner was a Toyota. We were in a Dodge. The guy that finished behind me was in a Chevrolet. It’s a dream that you could ask for when you come to Michigan is to see all the manufacturers have the success they had today. Of course, I was pulling for Dodge, trying to get our Dodge into Victory Lane… just came up a bit short.”

The drivers finishing in the top-10 spent much of their day riding around in the top-10. Jeff Gordon finished 4th followed by Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Greg Biffle and Joey Logano rounded out the top-10.

For the (unofficial) race results, click here (nascar.com)

There were 4 cautions for 14 laps and 18 lead changes among 9 drivers: Kurt Busch 0; J. McMurray 1; Kurt Busch 2-19; D. Stremme 20; J. Nemechek 21; Kurt Busch 22-48; R. Gordon 49; Kurt Busch 50-51; D. Hamlin 52-91; Kurt Busch 92-95; K. Kahne 96-99; Kurt Busch 100; S. Hornish Jr. 101-105; Kurt Busch 106-113; D. Hamlin 114-140; M. Kenseth 141-142; D. Hamlin 143-176; K. Kahne 177-178; D. Hamlin 179-200

Promoting their new movie “Grown Ups”, Adam Sandler and Kevin James served as grand marshals of the race.

Kevin Harvick hangs on to his lead in the point standings, but lost ground to race winner Denny Hamlin. Harvick has a 22 point lead over 2nd place driver, Kyle Busch and 47 points over Denny Hamlin, who’s 3rd in line.

The Sprint Cup Series will head to Sonoma next weekend for the first road course race on the schedule this year.