For the second time in his career, Denny Hamlin got the opportunity to perform a burnout after winning $1 million.
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The Joe Gibbs Racing driver delivered a dominant weekend at Dover Motor Speedway en route to his second career All-Star Race win. He won the pole after spinning in qualifying, and then he ran inside the top three in all three segments of the race.
Hamlin finished second in segment 1 behind Bubba Wallace. He then finished third in segment 2, which helped him secure the pole for the final 200-lap segment.
Denny Hamlin wins the All-Star Race at Dover! pic.twitter.com/bqsYNQZl9X
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) May 17, 2026
He then continued to dominate at a track where he has won two straight points-paying races. He led 103 of the 200 laps and held off teammate Chase Briscoe in the closing laps. Once he took the checkered flag, he performed multiple burnouts at the 1-mile track before heading to victory lane.
The rest of the top 10 included Briscoe, Erik Jones, Austin Dillon, Connor Zilisch, Austin Cindric, William Byron, Michael McDowell, Alex Bowman, and Brad Keselowski.
Hamlin could have led more laps, but the format changed the situation. NASCAR inverted the top 26 drivers after the first segment, so he dropped further back in the field to start the second.
MORE: Full All-Star Race Results
"I mean, I liked it," Hamlin said about the race format. "It challenged us to have to go through traffic. Otherwise, I mean, you could go out there, and you could lead a bunch of laps. I definitely like the invert. Obviously it caused some chaos there, took out some good cars.
"Overall this is a typical All-Star Race when that stuff happens. I just knew the game-changer for us was long runs and obviously the ability to pass when we were behind someone."
This marks the second time that Hamlin has won the All-Star Race. His first took place during the 2015 season. He started from the pole at Charlotte Motor Speedway and led 26 laps before holding off Kevin Harvick to capture the $1 million.
The afternoon at Dover Motor Speedway featured some attrition throughout the field. NASCAR ditched the All-Star Open and put all of the drivers in the field for the first two segments of the race. Although, multiple fell out of contention due to multiple wrecks.
The first nine-car incident took place on Lap 2 when Ryan Preece and Todd Gilliland collided. This sparked a big crash that also collected McDowell, Daniel Suarez, John Hunter Nemechek, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, Cole Custer, and Chase Elliott.
Preece's car burst into flames, so he exited the race. Gilliland and Custer both exited due to their cars taking too much damage. The rest of these drivers remained in contention for the $1 million for the time being. Although Larson and Blaney both took their cars to the garage for extensive repairs.
Another crash then took place at the end of the first segment. This occurred when Riley Herbst got loose in front of Alex Bowman. Contact sent him spinning into the field.
The second crash collected Herbst, Bowman, Elliott, Kyle Busch, AJ Allmendinger, Chris Buescher, Christopher Bell, Josh Berry, Zane Smith, and Nemechek.
