Hamlin wins (again); Gordon watches another win go by & Roush facing some questions

Denny Hamlin wins again and afterward said this isn't even the team's best stuff. How scary is that for the competition?

Hamlin led the final 24 laps to win Saturday night's Cup race at Darlington and sweep the weekend after winning the Nationwide race at this track on Friday night.

"I can't tell you how excited I am about us winning right now because I know what our team is capable of by the time we hit the Chase,'' Hamlin said after his third win of the season and the 11th in his career. "We're running pretty much last year's cars for the most part. We're just kind of easing our way into.

"We didn't exepect to have the success. We thought we could contend for race wins, maybe get one here or there the first 12 (races0. We really wanted to come on after Indy, that was our goal to run the light switch on and really go for it.''

Said crew chief Mike Ford: "I'll be honest with you, knowing what we've got coming later in the season, what we're working on. We're working on the back half of the season right now. Honestly, I'm surprised at how strong we are right now. Not to spill the beans, but we're working on Chase stuff right now. We're racing things that we were racing at the end of last year, so we can concentrate on the later months of the year.''

So the question is if Hamlin and his team can get any stronger, who could challenge them when the Chase comes around?

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GORDON FRUSTRATED ONLY IN HIMSELF

Jeff Gordon again seemed like a challenger for the win but again didn't win, seeing his winless drought extend to 40 races. The longest winless drought in his career is 47 races.

Gordon led a race-high 110 laps but he accepted the fourth-place finish Saturday night, noting that he didn't think they had the best car and weren't as dominating as they have been in recent races. Gordon did lead a race-high 110 laps though.

"I really felt it wasn't our race to win,'' Gordon said. "We were going to have to take it away from someone to win it.''

He missed pit road on lap 340 and then on lap 341 he was on pit road and the caution came out. Instead of pitting, he continued on down pit road, beat the leader to the start/finsih line and remained on the lead lap. Had he pitted on lap 340, he would have been a lap down and then witn the caution out would have had no chance for a top 10 finsih. While this wasn't the best of circumstances, he did go from 12th to fourth in the final 20 laps.

Here's what Gordon said after the race:

"When you're running as good as we are, you keep buliding that momentum on those good runs and keep trying to make your stuff better and keep trying to put yourself in that position. If we continue to put ourselves in that positon, we're running so good consistently that unless (Denny Hamlin) goes on a tear because he's been pretty strong, I feel like we're one of the cars to beat each and every weekend and that's how you get to Victory Lane.''

About missing pit road on lap 340, Gordon said: "I just tried to get to pit road a little bit too hard and someone was coming behind me and they didn't know I was pitting, I didn't signal good enough or at all and so in order to avoid a wreck, I tried to get out of his way but then I missed pit road. I hate making mistakes like that.

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ANOTHER TOUGH FINISH FOR JEFF BURTON

Jeff Burton's hope for a win ended when he was penalized for running over an air hose on his final pit stop. He had to return to the points for a stop-and-go penalty, putting him 18th, the last car on the lead lap with 20 laps to go. He finished 8th.

Said crew chief Todd Berrier after the race:

"Everybody has got to know that we've got to do all the little crap right, that's what makes it work. You can't have a dominant car and make bad pit calls and win the race. You've got to have everything lined up. We're getting experience at it every week. I just hope we get it worked out with inside 10 (races) to go. That's the main thing.''

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WHAT'S GOING ON AT ROUSH FENWAY RACING?

Matt Kenseth was the highest finishing Roush car, placing 13th. None of its cars was competitive Saturday night at Darlington.

Here's what car owner Jack Roush had to say about things after the race:

"We had a number of things that didn't work out to our favor. We had two alternators that failed (on the cars of Greg Biffle and Paul Menard with Richard Petty Motorsports, another Ford team). We had one fail last week that we discounted because we thought it had been mishandled (in the car of Kasey Kahne of RPM last week). We started off, for the most part, too tight. We expected the thing to get loose tonight and be looser than it was. We started off with the Roush Fenway cars for the most part too tight and we had to work our way out of that. (Matt Kenseth) had two sets of tires that vibrated bad and (Carl Edwards) had a set that had a bad vibration. Those happned to occur at the exact right time to take two tires and so we missed our opporunities to have two tires and had to go back further in the line.''

One of the interesting things Roush mentioned was how all the teams were off on the setup and didn't anticipate as well what this tire, a new one for Darlington, would do. That leads to a bigger issue at Roush Fenway Racing and that is the organization's simulation program. Roush discused that:

"We've got a very competitive aero package, I think of what everybody else has. There's a question of whether our simulation program is competitive. That's one of the things we're not sure and in the process of evaluating that for the balance of the year and we're going to be trying some things. We're off, generally, somewhere. It's not engine. It's not aero. It's not lack of Ford support and it's not lack of talented people. We're just not quite getting the result that we need.''

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TIME FOR A CHANGE???

Look, there's nothing wrong with 500 miles at Darlington -- this track is a test and 500 miles provides that but at some point maybe NASCAR needs to look at the starting time. While the starting time is listed as 7:30 p.m. Eatern, the green flag fell about 7:45 p.m. or so. With the race running nearly four hours, that put shte end of the race around midnight Eastern.

One has to wonder if it would be better for NASCAR to start at say 7 p.m. in hopes of finishing closer to 11 p.m. Is the sport serving its fans -- and many of them are in the Eastern Time Zone -- with races ending this late. The Phoenix race faced a similar issue after it was extended by 60 or so laps this year (expect the race to be shortened a bit next year although it will still end at night for Phoenix but shouldn't be as late)

While NASCAR touts its Fan Council and the 12,000 members on it, maybe its time for NASCAR to ask those fans about the idea of races ending as late as midnight in the Eastern Time Zone. It would be interesting to see the results. Do you mind races ending at midnight? Or do you go to be bed before it ends and maybe watch the finish the next day? What would you tell NASCAR about start times for Saturday night races?

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SHORT TAKES

# NASCAR announced that it confiscated the rear gear of the No. 55 car (Michael McDowell) on Friday and will take it back to the R&D Center for further inspection. Any penalties could come Tuesday.

# Tony Stewart finished 23rd and fell three more spots in the Chase to 18th. He's fallen from 5th to 18th in the points in the last six races.

#  Dale Earnhardt Jr. finsihed 18th but moved into 12th in the points. He leads 13th-place Martin Truex Jr. by 16 points heading into Dover.

# Kevin Harvick finished sixth and remains the ponits leader. He holds a 110-point advantage on Jimmie Johnson.

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SOMETHING TO MAKE YOU GO HMMMM

# Denny Hamlin is the first driver to sweep the Nationwide and Cup races at Darlington since Mark Martin did it in 1993.

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RACE RESULTS

1. Denny Hamlin

2. Jamie McMurray

3. Kurt Busch

4. Jeff Gordon

5. Juan Pablo Montoya

6. Kevin Harvick

7. Kyle Busch

8. Jeff Burton

9. Ryan Newman

10. Brian Vickers

11. David Reutimann

12. Brad Keselowski

13. Matt Kenseth

14. David Ragan

15. Carl Edwards

16. Mark Martin

17. Regan Smith

18. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

19. Martin Truex Jr.

20. Kasey Kahne

21. Elliott Sadler

22. Greg Biffle

23. Tony Stewart

24. David Stremme

25. Marcos Ambrose

26. Travis Kvapil

27. Joey Logano

28. Scott Speed

29. Max Papis

30. Paul Menard

31. Sam Hornish Jr.

32. Clint Bowyer

33. Kevin Conway

34. Bobby Labonte

35. David Gilliland

36. Jimmie Johnson

37. AJ Allmendinger

38. Robby Gordon

39. Todd Bodine

40. Michael McDowell

41. J.J. Yeley

42. Dave Blaney

43. Reed Sorenson

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POINTS

1. Kevin Harvick ............ 1,622 points

2. Jimmie Johnson....... 110 points behind leader

3. Kyle Busch ................. 113 points behind leader

4. Jeff Gordon ................ 147 points behind leader

5. Matt Kenseth .............. 150 points behind leader

6. Denny Hamlin ............ 164 points behind leader

7. Greg Biffle ................... 191 points behind leader

8. Kurt Busch .................. 202 points behind leader

9. Jeff Burton ................... 228 points behind leader

10. Mark Martin ................ 265 points behind leader

11. Carl Edwards ............ 277 points behind leader

12. Dale Earnhardt Jr. .... 304 points behind leader

13. Martin Truex Jr. ........... 16 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE (Final Chase spot)

14. Ryan Newman .............38 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE

15. Clint Bowyer .................38 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE

16. Jamie McMurray .......... 39 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE

17. Juan Pablo Montoya .... 54 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE

18. Tony Stewart ..................59 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE

19. Joey Logano ..................120 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE

20. Brian Vickers ..................160 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE

21. David Ragan ...................176 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE

22. Kasey Kahne ................... 189 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE

23. Paul Menard ..................... 201 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE

24. David Reutimann ............ 216 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE

25. Brad Keselowski ............. 217 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE

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