Denny Hamlin accomplished two things in winning Sunday at Martinsville Speedway but one means more than the other.
It starts with the win itself, in which Hamlin and the No. 11 Progressive team broke a winless drought in the Cup Series. Hamlin had not won since April 29, 2024 at Dover Motor Speedway. It had been 31 races going into Sunday’s event at Martinsville, which Hamlin had recently two weeks ago felt like “an eternity.”
The victory, however, also broke a drought at half-mile for Hamlin. His last win at the track had been in the spring of 2015, which was also his fifth win at Martinsville Speedway in 19 starts.
And so, while winning is great, it’s the latter that will mean the most for Hamlin as the victory continues to soak in over the coming days. Martinsville is a special place to the Joe Gibbs Racing driver and not being successful there has weighed on him over the years.
“I’m telling you, I scratch my head, and I study this racetrack more now than I ever have in my career,” Hamlin said. “It was way easier to win 10 years ago, 12 years ago when it was me, Jimmie , and Jeff . I knew it was going to be the three of us. Our cars were good. We had the feeling we just were better than everyone else and it was easy. I didn’t have to put in all the work that I do now.”
Amid all that effort, there were many races where Hamlin had the best car and did not win at Martinsville Speedway. In the 19 races at the track since his 2015 win, and excluding Sunday’s performance, Hamlin earned 10 top-five finishes and led 1,136 laps. The laps led were accumulated in 14 of those 19 races, and in five of them, Hamlin led 100 or more laps.