After two evenings of racing, there was plenty of speculation as to who would take the Crown Royal Presents the Matthew & Daniel Hansen 400 at Richmond International Raceway.  Would former Chesterfield resident Denny Hamlin sweep at Richmond with his third win in three days?

Not this time.

It was Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch who claimed the Sprint Cup win, leading a majority of the laps and pulling away from Hamlin down the stretch to give owner JD Gibbs a four for four sweep at RIR.

Darryl Wallace Jr.’s, racing under the Gibbs umbrella, took the win Thursday night in the K&N Pro Series East Blue Ox 100. Hamlin took the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown charity race later the same evening, beating out Busch.  Hamlin found victory once again in the Bubba Burger 250 Nationwide race on Friday but it was Busch on Victory Lane on Saturday night.

But after struggles throughout the early season, second place for Hamlin was not a bad thing.  “I am ecstatic,” he said.

Pole winner, Juan Pablo Montoya managed to hold the lead for 25 laps before falling back.  By lap 228 he was in 35th place, and finished 29th for the night…but not without a cloud of contention overshadowing him. 

As temperatures cooled making for a faster track, tempers got hot as drivers, running in close quarters on RIR’s short track, began to have to deal with damage from jostling.  After an extended run of green flag laps, the first caution flew as did the debris from Montoya’s damaged foil when Ryan Newman made contact causing his left rear to smash againt the outside wall. 

Montoya’s team replaced the foil put during a pit stop and retaliatory action ensued. On lap 235,  Newman was spun out from Montoya’s contact and into outside retaining wall.  The flustered Newman, trying to complete a u-turn back into traffic came back up and got tagged a second time by Kurt Busch who braked to avoid him.

Newman, hot from Montoya’s retribution vowed to handle the matter following the race.  With the race over he headed to see the CEO of NASCAR saying Montoya “didn’t show much class” and that he would try to represent the Army and “see what we can do with him.” 

Montoya declined comment, heading straight for his hauler.

Hamlin pointed out that Montoya smash-ups are nothing new to the races.

“I don’t like it, but every time Montoya has damage, you usually see whoever did it, they end up getting wrecked,” Hamlin said. “You usually know that’s coming. You’ve got to realize, and Montoya—I like him, I think he’s a hell of a driver—you can’t wreck everyone every time you get in an accident. Accidents happen. Guys make some mistakes. Why hold grudges and wreck guys. I don’t understand that. It makes it tough to get in the Chase that way, too.”

Adding to the tension and excitement was a spectacular series of contacts involving 10 vehicles at the 300 lap mark. The sequence began when Jeff Gordon took a hard side swipe into the inside wall where there is no SAFER barrier - something that Gordon seems to have had a propensity to do.

“Jeff has been the guy to find it at every race track we’ve had,” Busch said. 

Gordon did not return to the race.

“I find the worst frickin place to hit the wall,” Gordon said. “It knocked the wind out of me.  I hit the worst angles on walls.  Somebody got into my left rear and around I went.”