NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Denny Hamlin vowed after the spring race at Martinsville Speedway that he would take the checkers there in the fall.

In March, he finished second to Jimmie Johnson after Johnson made an aggressive move to take the lead and Hamlin made up for that loss by going to Victory Lane in the Goody’s TUMS Fast Relief 500 today.

After struggling early in the Chase, this win in his No. 11 FedEx Freight Toyota is something Hamlin has been hoping for.

“It’s a good bounce back. I gotta thank all my fans out there, Twitter and everyone giving me some hope that the last two weeks are in the past,” Hamlin said after doing smoky burnouts all the way around the racetrack. “To get three wins on this season, more than we’ve had in any other season, this is the best we’ve been.”

Johnson, who led five separate times for a total of 164 laps today in his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet, hung on for a second place finish and padded his lead in the series point standings by another 28 points, for a total of 118 points, over Mark Martin.

“(I) wish we could have won, but second, nothing wrong with that,” Johnson said.

Juan Pablo Montoya finished 3rd in his No. 42 Target Chevrolet despite some aggressive racing throughout the day including a lot of bumping with Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 DuPont/NationalGuard.com Chevrolet early on. Montoya commented earlier this week that patience is the key to racing at Martinsville but, as usual, the short track brought out the aggressiveness in more than one driver.

“It’s (being patient) not as hard as you think,” Montoya said after the race. “Here’s a place that you don’t want to wreck anybody because payback is really bad here.”

Gordon, who ended up 5th, also commented on the incident with Montoya in his post-race interview.

“He’s an aggressive driver. We’ve seen it from him before,” Gordon said, of Montoya. “That’s kinda the way he drives and I just try not to make him mad anymore and I tried to race him as clean as I could.”

Kyle Busch worked his way up from his 41st starting position in the No. 18 M&M’s/Halloween Toyota for a 4th place finish.

Jamie McMurray finished 6th followed by Ryan Newman and Martin in 7th and 8th, respectively. Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top-10.

Next week, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series will be in Talladega, AL for the AMP Energy 500, the 7th race in the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup.

TUMS FAST RELIEF 500 RESULTS

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES POINTS

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