Joe Gibbs Racing was good, but not good enough, in the NASCAR Cup Series’ first points-paying event at North Wilkesboro Speedway in 30 years.
“Just a smidge off,” Hamlin told TNT Sports after finishing runner-up.
Joey Logano absolutely crushed the field at the historic 0.625-mile short track, leading 323 of 450 laps. He snapped a 45-race winless drought, dating back to last May at Texas Motor Speedway.
Throughout the evening, JGR gave Logano a run for his money. Ty Gibbs won the opening stage, inches ahead of Shane van Gisbergen. But the No. 54 Toyota was caught for speeding on pit road during the stage break, dropping to the rear of the field for the restart.
Gibbs was lapped early in Stage 2, but was the recipient of the free pass at Lap 199 when his teammate Christopher Bell slid into Josh Berry to bring out the caution.
“I want to go in the SiriusXM car and rip the dash out and punch myself,” Gibbs said of his pit-road error. “It’s just frustrating. Got in a squirrely spot with the lights and just kept going.”
Hamlin took over as the lead Toyota, finishing runner-up to Logano in the second stage. Meanwhile, Chase Briscoe drove from 30th starting position to place eighth in Stage 1. During the second stage, he was trapped a lap down when Alex Bowman and Tyler Reddick wrecked entering pit road but took the wave around. During the Lap 199 caution, he pitted for fresh tires and drove up to third position by the Lap 265 marker, tallying 11 stage points for the evening.
“Our car was exceptional on the long runs, so I could run wherever and passed a lot of cars,” Briscoe noted. “The caution bit us there in that second stage. Who knows what would have happened if it worked out our way, but great night and a great car.”
The final stage was much of a heads-up battle between Logano and Hamlin to see who would capture the checkered flag. Chris Gayle, crew chief of the No. 11 car, undercut Paul Wolfe, leader of the No. 22 bunch, by one lap, calling Hamlin to pit road at Lap 359 to kickoff the pit cycle. Logano hit pit road the ensuing lap and rejoined the race barely ahead of Hamlin.
When the pit sequence concluded among the frontrunners, Logano took the lead back with 70 laps remaining and hung on for the victory by .859 seconds. Hamlin collected his league-leading 11th top-five finish of the 2026 campaign, extending his regular-season championship lead to 68 markers of Tyler Reddick.
“There were a lot of times where I thought my car was close, where it needed to be,” Hamlin added. “It was a great battle to keep [Logano] honest. He had a lot of speed and never gave up on the short run or the long run. Great job by our whole rest of the team to keep us in the ballgame, but we’ll have to regroup.”
Knowing the short-track prowess of Team Penske, Briscoe concurs with his veteran teammate. Three of the final five races of the regular season will be contested at tracks measuring less than a mile, all in the lead Ford team’s wheelhouse.
“There’s a lot of short tracks coming up – we have to step our game up,” Briscoe said. “We’re good, we just need to be that little bit better to where we’re at on the mile-and-a-halves. See what we got and hopefully capitalize on the intermediate and see what we’ve got on the short tracks.”
Gibbs was frustrated with the fourth-place finish, believing the No. 54 car the potential to race for the win. He still netted his ninth top-five finish, a new personal best for a single season.
“I wish I could have gotten up there and raced with my teammates and those guys,” Gibbs said. “It would have been fun. I think we would have put on a great show. Maybe if we were up there everyone would have enjoyed it a lot more.”
Bell, who fought brake issues for much of the evening, placed 19th after looking to be the class of the field in practice on Saturday.