Denny Hamlin wins Martinsville Cup race

Denny Hamlin took the #11 Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing to victory at Martinsville in the 250-mile, 500-lap Sprint Cup Series race on Sunday after a fierce late-race battle with the #2 Ford of Brad Keselowski. It was Hamlin's fifth career Cup win at Martinsville, and the first win for a Toyota in Cup this year. Hamlin and his teammate Kyle Busch gave Toyota its only two Cup wins last year. Hamlin's win on Sunday was the manufacturer's first since Hamlin's Talladega win last May.

Sunday's race marked the Sprint Cup debut of defending Xfinity Series champion Chase Elliott, who was competing in the first of five races for the part-time fifth Hendrick Motorsports entry, the #25 Chevrolet, thanks to his position as a driver at the Hendrick-affiliated JR Motorsports. Elliott ran into trouble early, like many other drivers during the race, and spent nearly 70 laps behind the wall as his crew fixed front-end damage on his car. Elliott, who started 27th in the 43-car field, finished 38th and will next attempt the Saturday night race at Richmond next month.Two full-time Hendrick drivers, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr., encountered problems of their own: Johnson's #48 Chevrolet couldn't keep up with the leaders despite his crew constantly making adjustments, and he was then caught speeding on pit road. Earnhardt suffered a broken shifter, which was hard to fix due to a vibration, and he was later caught up in a multi-car pileup that broke the radiator of his #88 Chevrolet and forced his crew to remove the crumpled front sheet metal. Other drivers involved in the pileup, which occurred off turn 2 just after a restart, were Paul Menard, David Ragan, Sam Hornish Jr., Casey Mears, Cole Whitt and Justin Allgaier.

The Roush Fenway Fords also got caught up in the mayhem. Trevor Bayne spun the #6 Ford to bring out the first caution on lap 12, and was then caught up in crashes on laps 286 and 367, the second of which also took out Greg Biffle. Regan Smith (substituting for Kyle Larson in the #42 Chevrolet after Larson's fainting incident on Saturday), Danica Patrick and outside polesitter Ryan Newman were involved in these incidents as well. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. spun his #17 Ford three separate times, and finally went to the garage after suffering considerable damage. Even polesitter Joey Logano got caught up in the lap 367 pileup but did not have much damage and recovered to finish third. The last two cautions came on lap 434 for Carl Edwards' spin in the #19 Toyota and a debris caution on lap 461. The ensuing restart had Matt Kenseth and eight-time Martinsville winner Jeff Gordon out front, but Tony Stewart soon got on the point, followed by Brad Keselowski and then Denny Hamlin.

There was a total of 16 cautions for 112 laps, more than a fifth of the race's total length, and five shy of the track record of 21 cautions. Martin Truex Jr. got his sixth straight top-ten finish, finishing sixth and was the highest-finishing Chevrolet driver. Kevin Harvick's streak of top-two finishes also came to an end as he finished eighth in the #4 Chevrolet.

All thee national series are off next week in observance of Easter. The Sprint Cup Series is headed to Fort Worth, Texas in two weeks for the first scheduled night race of the season for the series, a 500-miler on Saturday, April 11.

Race Results:

1. (15) 11-Denny Hamlin - Toyota - 500 laps, led 91 laps
2. (12) 2-Brad Keselowski - Ford - 500 laps, led 18 laps
3. (1) 22-Joey Logano - Ford - 500 laps, led 108 laps
4. (8) 20-Matt Kenseth - Toyota - 500 laps, led 11 laps
5. (20) 18-David Ragan - Toyota - 500 laps
6. (3) 78-Martin Truex Jr. - Chevrolet - 500 laps, led 23 laps
7. (16) 10-Danica Patrick - Chevrolet - 500 laps
8. (17) 4-Kevin Harvick - Chevrolet - 500 laps, led 154 laps
9. (4) 24-Jeff Gordon - Chevrolet - 500 laps, led 21 laps
10. (19) 1-Jamie McMurray - Chevrolet - 500 laps