William Byron, Ryan Blaney… Denny Hamlin? Where did he come from?

It was a rather uneventful first half of the race with William Byron dominating and leading all the laps.

As the race was in the final stage, the storylines finally started writing themselves as Ryan Blaney made a huge comeback, until a late race caution comes out.

This caution sets up Denny Hamlin to come out of nowhere and get his second win in a row.

How did this happen? Let’s take a look:

RECAP

It started with Byron taking the green flag from the pole, but the race would quickly go back under the yellow just four laps into the race.

Kyle Larson, in the Terry Labonte throwback scheme, loses control and slides into the inside wall down the backstretch.

This would send him to the garage very early, but don’t forget about him — he creates all the drama late in the race.

After Carson Hocevar spins not once, but twice in the opening stage, Byron keeps getting the strong jumps on the restart, leads the first 90 laps and collecting the stage win.

After just one other caution for debris in Stage 2, Byron continues to lead.

On lap 185, Byron wins stage 2.

He has still led every lap up until this point.

With the stage 2 win, Byron achieves a notable milestone, becoming the second driver in the Stage era to lead every lap in the first two stages.

Briefly into stage 3, Josh Berry was running in the fifth position when he makes contact with Tyler Reddick, causing him to spin and damage the car significantly.

This would put him in the garage, ultimately ending his day.

By now, Larson has rejoined the track, over 150 laps down.

He would eventually pass JJ Yeley, who had issues earlier in the race and retired from the contest, and gain a single point by the end of the day.

A few laps later, Byron sets another impressive achievement, having led the first 207 laps of the race.

This marks the most laps led by a single driver in a Cup race since Jeff Burton at New Hampshire in September 2000.

However, as stage 3 stayed green for a long period, pit stops became a strategic issue or advantage for certain drivers.

Reddick ends up taking the lead once everyone cycled out, and this pinned Byron back in traffic.

After having such a great car up front all day, Byron struggled to get around the top 5 and retake the lead.

With 44 laps to go, Reddick is holding a steady lead over the rest of the field.

But, here comes Blaney.

In just about 30 laps, Blaney has moved from the mid-teens to the fifth position.

8 laps later, he has now passed three other cars to move into second place, and sets his eyes on Reddick.

With 13 laps remaining, Reddick holds a 3.8 second lead over Blaney.

However, Blaney reels him in and catches Reddick with just four laps to go.

As Blaney makes his move coming off turn 2, completing the pass, Reddick gets up into the wall.

The crowd goes wild.

They were loving Blaney’s comeback and the ability to drive through the field to take the lead.

Everyone was ready to cheer him to victory lane for doing such a difficult task in the modern NASCAR era.

Remember Larson coming back onto track?

Well, as Reddick gets into the wall, Larson checks up and slams on the brakes.

Bubba Wallace is unable to react in time and spins Larson’s number 5 car.

Caution flies and we’re going to overtime.

Fans couldn’t believe it. Larson, who spun out on lap 4, spins with 4 laps to go.

With overtime looming, everyone pits.

Denny Hamlin, who was running mid pack most of the day, gets a very quick pit stop from his crew and they take the lead on pit road.

Blaney’s crew stalls, and drops him back to fourth.

In the 2 lap shootout, Denny Hamlin pulls away and wins the Goodyear 400 at Darlington.

Byron comes home second, with Christopher Bell, Reddick, and Blaney rounding out the top 5.

Hamlin, sporting the throwback paint scheme to Carl Edwards, declined to do a backflip off his car.

Ryan Blaney wasn’t sure what to say in his post-race interview, even after watching the replay of Larson’s crash.

Hamlin continued to play in the ‘villain role’ by stating in his post race interview: “There are two people I really love right now, my pit crew and Kyle Larson.”

This win puts Hamlin in sole position of 11th place on the All-Time Wins list.

FLAGS OF THE WEEK

Green flag: Darlington. What a fun throwback weekend, my first in person. I have grown very fond of this track. After attending the Southern 500 last year for my first time there, I knew I had to go back and see the spring race. It is such a difficult track to drive and it’s so difficult to pass. Which made it really impressive to see Blaney pass almost every car on the track in that final run.

Yellow flag: Overtime or let the race finish under yellow? Back in the day, before stage racing and overtime finishes, if the driver was leading when the caution came out (usually under 3-5 laps to go) the leader would do a couple pace laps around the track until they collect the checkered flag, winning the race. Blaney would’ve been the beneficiary of that rule yesterday, and I feel as though he was robbed of the win and the amazing comeback. As exciting as overtime finishes are, is it time to look away from that rule?

Red flag: Drivers saying throwback weekend has ‘run its course’. As mentioned in my green flag comments, I loved the historic feel of the weekend, with some of the sports true icons represented and representing in the pre race experience and fan zones. When I asked former driver Kyle Petty his thoughts on drivers not liking it, he said: “I’ve learned overtime that drivers are idiots.” In my opinion, I love it. All the fans I interviewed this weekend agreed about it.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The Truck Series rejoins the action next weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway for the final race before NASCAR takes Easter Weekend off.

The Cup Series race will be on Sunday, April 13th at 3:00 PM EST on FS1.

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