Unfortunately I won’t be racing this weekend at Richmond. It kills me to not be in the car for my team and… twitpl.us/t/9JT

— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) April 24, 2013

Hamlin had hoped to be back in the car at Richmond.

Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano got together while racing for the win in the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway. Hamlin’s car made hard contact with the inside wall.

Tests revelealed a fractured L1 vertebra that could sideline Hamlin for up to six weeks. Mark Martin and Brian Vickers have filled in for Hamlin in Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 11 Toyota.

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JGR President JD Gibbs said:

We’ve been real fortunate to have never been in this situation with the need to find someone to fill in for an injured driver. A lot goes into a decision like this but we are really pleased to have someone of the character and caliber of Mark Martin to fill in while Denny is out. Obviously we’re not exactly sure how long that is going to take, but Mark’s career speaks for itself and our team knows it will have the opportunity to compete for a win every week.

Martin, who currently shares the No. 55 Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota with Brian Vickers, will take over driving duties in the STP Gas Booster 400 at Martinsville Speedway.

Martin said:

I’m happy to have this opportunity to help out JGR, FedEx and Denny. Hopefully I can keep those guys up front and compete for wins while Denny heals up.

Vickers is expected to drive the No. 55 while Martin fills in for Hamlin.

Update: Martin will only fill in for Hamlin at Martinsville. He will return to the No. 55 in the NRA 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. Vickers will then drive the No. 11.

J D Gibbs said:

Obviously having to find someone to fill in for Denny is not an ideal situation to have to be in and when you start a process like this you obviously begin to look at the drivers that are not only available but also able to drive for your race team and manufacturer. We were a bit premature in determining Mark’s status past Martinsville however. We’re real happy to have the opportunity to get Brian in our Cup cars and with him driving Nationwide for us we think we have some continuity there that is beneficial.

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The victory was the 61st of Johnson’s career in his 400th start in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and his second win in NASCAR’s most prestigious race.

Earnhardt finished second for the third time in the last four Daytona 500s. Mark Martin ran third, followed by defending series champion Brad Keselowski and Ryan Newman. Greg Biffle ran sixth and Regan Smith seventh.

Polesitter Danica Patrick came home eighth, the best-ever finish by a woman in the Daytona 500.

With tandem racing all but absent in the points race for the new Gen-6 race cars, passing was difficult and track position paramount.

“You can’t ride and wait for things to happen,” Johnson said. “You have to race all day long and fight for track position. This race car, this Lowe’s Chevrolet was so good. (Crew chief) Chad Knaus and all of Hendrick Motorsports had me a fast car, and I could really stay up front all day long. I had a lot of confidence in the final few laps leading the train, (because) I knew just how fast the car was.”

Earnhardt got a strong push from Martin on the last lap, but couldn’t catch Johnson off the final corner.

“I couldn’t have done much without Mark helping me here at the end,” said Earnhardt, who was fourth at the white flag. “I was hoping he was thinking what I was thinking as we come off of Turn 2 on that last lap. I felt like we needed to make the move a little earlier than off (Turn) 4.

“I kept backing up, backing up, trying not to let guys get racing behind us too much. If somebody ducked out of line a couple rows behind Mark, I was going to have a gap, (and) me and Mark could take off, not get hung up with those guys. Once we come off of 2, mashed the gas, got a run on Danica, side-drafted her a little bit.

“I don’t know why them guys didn’t pull down in front of me besides Jimmie, but we got through 3 and 4 with a pretty good run. Once we come to Turn 4, we kind of run out of steam, didn’t have enough to get a run on Jimmie.”

After a restart on Lap 182, following the fifth caution of the race for Jeff Burton’s hard contact with the outside wall at the entrance to the tri-oval, Keselowski and Johnson ran side-by-side at the front of the pack, trading the lead as their respective lanes gained momentum.

A caution for debris on Lap 192 set up the six-lap dash to the finish with Johnson in the lead in the outside lane.

Patrick made history when she led the field to green from the pole position. On Lap 90, she reached another milestone. Surging to the lead after a restart, she paced the field on Laps 90 and 91, and, in doing so, became the first female driver to lead a lap in the Daytona 500 and the first female to lead a green-flag Lap in the Cup series.

(Janet Guthrie led Laps 43 through 47 under caution in the Nov. 20, 1977, Los Angeles Times 500 at Ontario Motor Speedway, the only five laps she led in 33 career Cup starts.)

Later in the race, Patrick led three more laps, for a total of five, to tie Guthrie’s five.

Despite the success, Patrick was reluctant to reset expectations for her rookie season in the Cup series.

“I think that would be unwise to sort of start telling myself that top 10 is where we need to be every week,” said Patrick, who was third with one lap left but fell to eighth in the last-lap scramble. “I think that’s setting up for failure. The list of drivers in the Cup series is deep. This is a unique track. These (restrictor-plate) tracks are different and unique. (It’s) a lot about the car.

“I mean, you have to be smart enough to do the right thing at the right time, but it’s very much about the car. I feel like I’m still sticking to ‘Let’s see how these first five races go,’ where we go to a bunch of different kinds of tracks, see where we settle in, start to establish goals from there on out.”

The Toyota Camrys of Joe Gibbs Racing were running 1-2-3 as the race neared the three-quarter mark, with Matt Kenseth pacing Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch. On Lap 150, however, Kenseth, who led four times for a race-high 86 laps, brought his car to pit road, having felt a vibration in the drive train. Busch parked his car two laps later, with a blown engine.

That left Hamlin at the point as the field ran single-file behind him, in a lull before the late-race pyrotechnics.

A nine-car accident on Lap 138, thinned an already depleted field. With most cars running single-file around the top of the track, Keselowski tapped David Reutimann and dropped abruptly to the apron in Turn 1.

That triggered a melee as cars checked up behind Keselowski. Carl Edwards was a victim of the accident, as ill fortune at Daytona continued to haunt the driver who already had wrecked four cars at Daytona this year.

Other casualties included 2011 Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr., making his first start as a full-time Cup driver in the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford Fusion.

The first major wreck of the race — on Lap 33 as the double-file lead pack of cars exited the tri-oval — dashed the hopes of former Daytona 500 winners Kevin Harvick and Jamie McMurray, as well as those of pre-race favorites Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne.

As the field stacked up toward Turn 1, Kyle Busch tagged the back of Kahne’s car, turning Kahne into Juan Pablo Montoya’s Chevrolet SS and igniting a nine-car incident that also damaged the cars of Keselowski, Kurt Busch and Casey Mears.

Keselowski suffered damage to the both sides of his Ford, pinballing off both Montoya and Harvick, but was able to continue. Kurt Busch lost a lap on pit road with the nose of his Chevy caved in from contact during the wreck. Casey Mears, who had qualified 17th, also sustained significant damage.

Note: Other drivers who have won their 400th Cup starts include Lee Petty, Richard Petty, David Pearson, Dave Marci’s and Dale Earnhardt.

On the last lap in what was the debut race for NASCAR’s Gen-6 race car, Harvick blocked Stewart on the inside and moved back up the track to block Biffle, who was perilously close to sending Harvick’s No. 29 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet into the fence.

Biffle ran second, Joey Logano took third, and Stewart — his momentum broken by Harvick’s block — finished fourth. Matt Kenseth finished fifth in his first competition for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Harvick’s victory was his third in five races, following back-to-back wins in 2009 and 2010. Though Harvick will leave RCR at the end of the season to drive for Stewart-Haas Racing next year, he said the impending job change is of no consequence on the track.

“I think it’s one of those deals, where, for us, it’s about winning races,” Harvick said in Victory Lane. “The politics and everything are one thing, but when we get to the race track, it’s about sitting in this race car, making it as fast as it will go.”

Harvick may not have had the fastest car — in fact, he thought the Stewart’s Chevy SS and Kenseth’s Camry were slightly better — but he made the critical moves at precisely the right times, particularly when it came to blocking Biffle.

“In the middle segment, I could tell that Biffle was backing up and trying to time what his move was going to be as we got further into the segment,” Harvick said. “So I was working on my timing to kind of back up and block that.

“Those guys (Biffle and Logano) were coming on the outside, and I don’t know if the 14 (Stewart) and the 16 (Biffle) were side-by-side, but I just felt like I needed to move up and block that momentum, and we were able to block two of those moves.”

Biffle said he thought about trying the outside lane entering the final corner but wasn’t sure he had enough room.

“I thought about sticking it in there, and it just didn’t look like it was going to work to me,” Biffle said. “It looked like it would be sparks and parts flying. He shut the door on the top. That’s what Kevin needed to do to win the race. I looked in the mirror and didn’t have anyone pushing me.”

An incident-free 25-lap second segment, won by Harvick over Biffle, set the starting order for the final 20-lap dash for the victory. By the end of the segment both Carl Edwards and Dale Earnhardt Jr. had lost touch with the 10-car pack ahead of them, but caution between the second and final segments bunched the field for a restart on Lap 56 of 75.

The first segment, on the other hand, featured plenty of action.

On Lap 15, the halfway point, a nine-car incident ruined the winning chances of nearly a third of the field. Stewart turned down across the nose of Marcos Ambrose’s Ford near the apex of Turns 1 and 2. Stewart saved his No, 14 Chevrolet, but drivers behind him checked up, seeing sparks trailing from the rear of Stewart’s car.

The ensuing wreck destroyed the cars of Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin. Martin Truex Jr.’s Toyota was nicked in the melee, but he was able to continue, as were Stewart and Ambrose.

In fact, Stewart’s car was fast to enough to take the lead on the final lap of the first segment, and he held it to the finish line. During the planned caution between segments, the 12 remaining cars came to pit road for mandatory four-tire stops — a requirement dictated by a fan vote.

Fans voted to set the starting lineup for the race according to the chronological order in which drivers won their poles. That put 2012 Daytona 500 pole winner Edwards in the top starting spot and Martin, winner of the pole at Phoenix the following week, on the outside of the front row.

Both Edwards and Martin, however, had to drop to the rear for the start, because neither driver practiced his back-up car after a wreck in Friday’s opening Sprint Unlimited practice forced a change of equipment. Accordingly, Kasey Kahne led the field to green, with Biffle beside him.

Martin said:

My goal is to make this car one of the most wanted rides in NASCAR for 2014. I want to help [crew chief] Rodney Childers get there and see him race for a championship.

When asked whether or not he would drive in 2014, he said:

It’s way too early to speculate on that. I really enjoy working at Michael Waltrip Racing. I’ll be around no matter what. But I want to do everything I can to get this team in position to race for a [driver's] championship in 2014.

Martin and Brian Vickers will split time in the car this season. Vickers could be a candidate for the No. 55 in 2014.

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Swan Racing is here to race competitively every week  the days of starting and parking are over. I am confident that we are putting together the personnel to one day produce a championship contender.

Davis has hired Steve Hmiel to be Swan Racing’s director of competition. Hmiel brings a wealth of experience with him to Swan Racing, serving as crew chief for drivers such as Terry Labonte, Mark Martin, and Dale Earnhardt Jr, among others. Hmiel served in a similar role with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing.

Childers joined the team in 2008, and led David Reutimann to MWR’s first victory in the Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2009. Together, Childers and Reutimann won at Chicagoland Speedway in 2010.

The No. 55 has posted five Top 5s, 14 Top 10s, and four poles.

Adroitly saving fuel over the final 79-lap green-flag run, the devil in the Blue Deuce, Detroit’s consummate wheel man, triumphed in what was perhaps the fourth- or fifth- or sixth-best car in the third Chase for the Sprint Cup race.

Keselowski wasn’t supposed to win at Dover, where his career average finish in five previous starts had been 17.0, but he did. Keselowski wasn’t supposed to be leading the series standings three races into the Chase, but he is, by five points over five-time champion Jimmie Johnson, who limped home in fourth place, saving every drop of fuel he could by slowing down and surrendering spots on the track in the closing laps.

The win was supposed to go to Johnson, a seven-time victor at Dover — tied for the track record with Hall of Famers Richard Petty and Bobby Allison. And if not Johnson, then Kyle Busch, who led 302 of 400 laps but had to pit late for fuel.

If not Kyle Busch, then his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Denny Hamlin, with his pole-winning form and an attitude buttressed by a sports psychologist. Hamlin led the first 34 laps and ran in the top three all afternoon, but a fuel shortage forced him to the pits with nine laps left, at which point Keselowski took over a lead he held to the finish.

Ultimately, Keselowski beat hard-charging Jeff Gordon to the finish line by 1.078 seconds to win his series-best fifth race of the season, his second in the Chase, his first at Dover and the ninth of his career. Gordon had topped off his gas tank on Lap 318 and had ample fuel to get to the finish, as did third-place Mark Martin, who rallied from a lap down to challenge Gordon for the runner-up spot.

Jimmie Johnson held fourth despite drastically backing down his lap speeds to conserve fuel. Carl Edwards ran fifth, posting his first top-five since the Fontana, Calif., race in late March and his third of the season.

Keselowski had nothing but praise for crew chief Paul Wolfe and the team that builds his Penske Racing engines.

“This has been one of my worst tracks,” Keselowski said. “I ran up front all day. I may not have had the best car, but hung around in that top five, just creeping around, and when you do that, you put yourself in position for good things to happen.

“That’s what this No. 2 team has done the last few months. Man, if we keep doing this the next seven weeks, it will be an awesome seven weeks. I’m just really, really proud of the effort.”

Johnson seemed poised for an eighth victory, after beating Busch out of the pits under caution on Lap 309, thanks to a 12.5-second stop to Busch’s 13.5 seconds. Thirty laps into a green-flag run that started on Lap 322, crew chief Chad Knaus posed an uncomfortable choice to the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet — either give up positions and save fuel or race hard, plan for another pit stop and hope for another caution.

They chose the fuel-saving option and salvaged fourth but were unable to contend for the win when the race went green the rest of the way.

In a rain-interrupted race of accumulating tension, Bowyer made it to the finish line 1.198 seconds ahead of Gordon in the closing laps of Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway. Gordon knocked Kyle Busch out of the final wild-card spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

The victory was Bowyer’s second of the season, his second at Richmond and the seventh of his career. He and teammate Martin Truex Jr. are the first two Michael Waltrip Racing drivers to make the 12-driver Chase field.

MWR teammate Mark Martin ran third, followed by Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth, but the big story was Gordon’s comeback that put all four Hendrick Motorsports cars in the Chase. Gordon joined Kahne, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the 10-race playoff.

For Busch, it was a failed pit strategy that led to his ouster from the second wild-card spot, a position he held entering the race and for the vast majority Saturday night. When a light rain caused the sixth caution on Lap 275, Busch stayed out while others came to pit road for fuel. A slow pit stop under green on Lap 334, thanks to a dropped lug nut on the right-rear wheel, did further damage to his chances and allowed Gordon to make the Chase by a three-point margin.

Several times in the last 11 laps, the second provisional wild-card spot changed hands between Gordon and Busch, who entered the race with a 12-point lead over Gordon. When Busch passed Martin Truex Jr. for the 15th position on Lap 390 of 400, he had the berth. When Gordon passed Mark Martin on Lap 394, he took it back.

Ultimately, Busch dropped positions to Marcos Ambrose and Hendrick driver and pole-sitter Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was on a late-race mission to help his teammate make the Chase.

“We missed,” Busch said tersely after the race was over. “Plain and simple.”

Team owner Joe Gibbs advised his mercurial driver to handle his disappointment the right way.

“There’s no right way to handle this situation,” was Busch’s rejoinder.

Gordon started second but quickly faded. By the time rain halted the race on Lap 152, he was a lap down and going nowhere. Under the caution that preceded the red flag, however, his crew cut the chain to the rear sway bar to disconnect it, and the handling of the No. 24 Chevrolet improved dramatically.

“I felt like I won the race [Saturday],” Gordon said. “When that was over, when they told me I was in the Chase, we made it — I mean, I was ecstatic. I was going nuts. To me, after you have that kind of effort, fall back, then come up there and finish second, almost win the race, make it by [three points], man, I don’t see any reason why we can’t go over these next 10 races and be a real threat for the championship.”

Bowyer recovered from a spin just past the midpoint of the race and rallied for the win. On Lap 234, contact with Juan Montoya’s Chevrolet deflated Bowyer’s left-rear tire. Fighting for control, Bowyer looped his car near the start/finish line.

“Thank you, Juan Pablo, for wrecking me and then winning me the race — thank you!” quipped Bowyer, who was then in position to gamble on fuel mileage. “We had a bad race last weekend [at Atlanta] and had a lot of adversity we had to bounce through, were kind of bummed out as a team, as a whole, coming into this race.

“It’s a good way to get things bounced back headed into this Chase. You can’t ask for a better race team, my teammates, MWR, everybody that’s a part of this. It’s just unbelievable.”

The consolation for Joe Gibbs Racing is that Denny Hamlin begins the Chase as the No. 1 seed on the strength of four victories in the first 26 races. That provides little solace for Busch’s crew chief Dave Rogers, who made the decision to keep his driver on the track when a pit stop would have been the safe play.

“We missed it — my fault,” Rogers radioed to Busch. “One hundred percent my fault.”

Candidates for the ride are said to be Joey Logano, Ryan Newman, Brian Vickers, and Sam Hornish.

Logano

Joey Logano appears to be the leading  candidate to take over the No. 22, which was vacated when AJ Allmendinger was released from the team following a failed drug test that resulted in his indefinite suspension from NASCAR. Logano, current driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Home Depot Toyota, may be on his way out at JGR. It appears that the team has signed Matt Kenseth, who announced earlier this year that he would be leaving Roush Fenway Racing, to drive the team’s No. 20 Camry. JGR has indicated that they would like to keep Logano, but that is contingent upon them finding sponsorship.

Newman

Ryan Newman could also be a candidate for the No. 22. Newman drove for Penske Racing in the ARCA Racing Series in 2000, and raced in what is now the Nationwide Series in 2001 for Penske. He drove for Penske in the Cup Series from 2002 to 2008, leaving for Stewart Haas Racing before the 2009 season. Newman could re-join his former team owner. But, SHR would like to keep Newman if sponsorship can be found. Army announced it would be leaving NASCAR at the end of the season, leaving without a sponsor for some races next season. Quicken Loans, however, is rumored to be considering stepping up and sponsoring the team for more races next season. If they do, it is highly unlikely Newman would leave SHR.

Vickers

Brian Vickers could also be a candidate for the No. 22. Vickers currently shares the No. 55 Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota with Mark Martin. Vickers missed a good portion of 2010 due to blood clotting issues. He returned to Red Bull Racing in 2011, but failed to post impressive results. At season’s end, Red Bull Racing pulled out of NASCAR competition, leaving Vickers without a ride. He was unable to secure a full time ride for 2012, and ended up with MWR on a part time basis. Vickers could drive for MWR full time in 2013, but there is nothing to indicate that this is likely to occur.

Hornish

Sam Hornish currently drives the No. 22 on an interim basis, filling in ever since Allmendinger was released. Hornish has posted somewhat impressive results in the car, finishing fifth at Watkins Glen. He has run six races in the car, posting four Top 20 finishes, including one Top 5. Hornish also drives in the Nationwide Series for the team. He is currently third in points with seven Top 5s and 14 Top 10s. Penske indicated that Hornish would receive consideration for the ride because Penske says that they are loyal to him.

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