NASCAR Darlington 2017 results: Denny Hamlin wins Bojangles’ Southern 500, plus full finishing order

Denny Hamlin rallied from a late blunder to pass leader Martin Truex Jr. with two laps remaining and win the Southern 500 Sunday night at Darlington Speedway.

Hamlin was leading and seemingly in control when he missed pit road while making a scheduled green-flag stop with 51 laps remaining. The gaffe dropped Hamlin 22 seconds behind Truex, who had already completed his pit stop.

Aided by fresher tires, a considerable advantage on the aged Darlington surface, Hamlin set about cutting into Truex’s lead. He eventually pulled to Truex’s bumper with less than three laps left when Truex suffered a flat right front tire and bounced into the outside wall with two laps to go.

“Drove our ass off. That’s as hard as I can drive,” Hamlin said when asked by NBCSN how he overcame his mistake.

Kyle Busch, Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, finished second, followed by Kurt Busch, Austin Dillon, and rookie Erik Jones.

The win was Hamlin’s second of the 2017 Monster Energy Cup Series season, the 31st of his career, and second at historic Darlington, NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway that’s hosted premier division races since 1950. He also won at the South Carolina track in 2010.

“It means so much,” Hamlin said. “This is the Southern 500; it doesn’t get much bigger than this. This is the granddaddy of them all. This race has so much history. I’m so happy to be in Victory Lane at Darlington.”

Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman, Truex, Kevin Harvick and Jamie McMurray completed the top 10.

Hamlin and Kyle Larson, who finished 14th, each led a race-high 124 laps.

Truex, who won the first two stages Sunday night, clinched the regular-season points championship, giving him an additional 15-point bonus to carry into the 10-race postseason. The 16-driver playoff field will be set following the regular season finale Saturday night at Richmond Raceway.

“It was definitely a bittersweet night for us to come up just two laps short there, blow a tire at the end after having no issues with tires all night and having such a good race car,” Truex said. “Unfortunate we blew the tire, but really proud of everybody on this team for an amazing season so far and to lock up the regular season points is a huge accomplishment for us, for our team.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished 22nd in his final Southern 500 start. NASCAR’s 14-time most popular driver announced he is retiring from full-time competition at the end of the season. He was bidding for a top-10 finish late when a tire issue necessitated an unscheduled pit stop.

During post-race inspection, officials discovered two unsecured lug nuts on Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevrolet. Earnhardt’s crew chief, Greg Ives, is subject to a one-race suspension and a $20,000 fine. Any penalties would likely be announced Tuesday or Wednesday.

Earnhardt will need a win at Richmond to qualify for the playoffs. His best finish is fifth in 25 races this season, and his last Cup victory occurred in Nov. 2015 at Phoenix Raceway.

“The right-rear was going down for a very long time and finally it went flat,” Earnhardt said. “Came in changed that and went back out and it was so loose you couldn’t go so we had to abuse those tires too much at the end.”

Eight cautions slowed the race for 38 laps.