Friday night under the lights at RIR in the NASCAR Nationwide Series usually spells excitement for race fans. This year, the 24th Annual Bubba Burger 250 was no different with former Chesterfield resident Denny Hamlin pulling out the win in a showdown with driver Paul Menard. 

Emporia’s Elliot Sadler, driving the #2 One Main Financial Chevrolet finished fourth behind Nationwide points leader Justin Algaier, to now trail him by six points.  Brad Keselowski finished fifth.

Starting from the 11th position, hometown favorite Hamlin, in the #20 SportsClips Haircuts Toyota, overtook pole winner, Carl Edwards, by lap 43.  Edwards’ earlier prophecy of the day that “Denny will be coming” certainly came to pass.  Hamlin continued pulling out front, dominating the remainder of the race for all but a few laps (199 on the pole) even after being told to slow down by crew chief, Adam Stevens.

Edwards’ Mustang was fast but not enough as he continued falling back, identifying problems to his crew, finally pitting, then began moving back up the pack by mid-race, only to run out of fuel and coast into the pits.  Adding to Edwards’ frustration his car stalled coming out of the pits because no fuel was left in the carburetor bringing a penalty for pitting out of the assigned pit box.  Edwards finished 25th in the race, five laps off the lead.

Hamlin took advantage of the unusually long consecutive green flag laps to pull away from the field without pitting until lap 100 for tires.  By lap 110, he was sitting out front again. 

The first caution flag did not fly until lap 123 when Kelly Bires, running 15th, spinning after contact with Jason Leffler’s left rear.  Hamlin took advantage of the yellow to pit for fuel, came out ahead of the pace car to keep the lead…and the green flag laps continued. 

By lap 169, Menard was chasing Hamlin from second.

With such long green flag laps fuel became a concern.  On lap 242 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ran out of gas having just passed the entrance to pit row bringing out a yellow and Hamlin took to pit road for the third and final time for tires and much needed gas.

On the restart Menard and Hamlin were side by side as the green came back out for the short two-lap run to the checkered flag, but it wasn’t enough to allow Menard to get to the front.

Losing ground, Menard could not pull off his strategy for the win.  “The last restart was wild, for sure,” Menard said. “I figured if I could have gotten a fender on him, I might have been able to roll around to the outside, but he got a better restart than me.”

Hamlin proved worthy of being deemed the one to watch during the race, having won his own charity benefit Thursday night starting from last place.  As he rejoiced in victory lane, his thoughts were already on Saturday night’s Cup race. “A sweep is not out of the question,” he said.