Denny Hamlin was about 20 laps from the weekend of his life. The Virginia-native was back at the track he grew up watching races at as a Hardcore Race Fan, in front of his hometown crowd. He had held a race at his local short-track.

Thursday night to raise money for the new Denny Hamlin Foundation announced this weekend, captured the pole for Saturday night's race, won the Nationwide event Friday night and was dominating Saturday's race leading all but one lap. Then it all went wrong.

The leaders had just hit pit road for the final time, when the 9th caution came out on lap 367 bringing the field back to the rear bumper of the FedEx Express Toyota. Concerned about a hard charging Dale Earnhardt Jr., Hamlin's crew chief Mike Ford reassured Hamlin, "Run your own race."

Unfortunately, there was little Hamlin could do. Less than five laps after Ford tried to ease his driver, Hamlin came on the radio shouting, "I think I have a flat!"

Once again, Ford attempted to reassure his driver, telling him the tires looked good all around. Unfortunately, the feel from the driver's seat was right, and with just 17 laps remaining Hamlin gave up the lead to Earnhardt Jr.

Hamlin's problems continued as he began to drop back like a rock in water as the tire lost air. Losing positions left and right, Hamlin attempted to hold on, hoping for a caution. That break never came, and on lap 392 the right front tire let go.

Unable to hit pit road, Hamlin parked it in Turn 4, bringing out the 10th caution of the evening. To make matters worse, NASCAR then held Hamlin two laps for deliberately bringing out the caution.

A great night quickly went sour as the bubble burst "so to speak" on Hamlin's tire. The most dominant car in the field limped home in the 24th spot, three laps behind race winner Clint Bowyer.

"You don't have days like this," Hamlin explained. "Dominating days like this don't happen and usually when it does, you have an issue at the end. To me it almost wasn't that surprising. I've had this issue before at Bristol and some other race tracks. Just got to figure out what's going on."

To say Hamlin's performance this weekend was dominating would be an understatement. The young driver looked at ease all weekend long and was as focused as ever on the race track. Leading 381 of the 410 laps in Saturday's Dan Lowry 400, Hamlin set a new record for the number of laps led in a 400-mile race at Richmond, surpassing Bobby Allison's previous record of 369 set in 1979.

Although he did not come home with the win or the weekend sweep, Hamlin has nothing to hang his head about. The third-year driver had the weekend of his career, and did so infront of his hometown crowd.

Understandbly upset, Hamlin summed it up by saying, "You can't whine about it. It just wasn't meant to be."