It took a decade, but Denny Hamlin is back in Martinsville Speedway’s victory lane. Hamlin picked up his first Martinsville grandfather clock since the 2015 spring race, pulling away from Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell on the final green flag run for his 55th career NASCAR Cup Series win.
With only nine lead changes among six drivers, passing under green was a difficult task under The Paperclip. As a result, teams up and down pit road utilized fuel only and two-tire calls to try to move up the running order, with varying degrees of success.
Let’s take a glimpse at the other major pit road plotlines from the half-mile short track in southern Virginia.
Pit Lane Unkind to Hendrick Motorsports
At first glance of finishing order, it looks as though Hendrick Motorsports had a pretty good day at Martinsville, with two drivers in the top five as Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson placed fourth and fifth, respectively.
But that doesn’t tell the story. In actuality, Sunday (March 30) could seen as a disappointment for HMS, especially considering they entered the weekend with wins in the past three Martinsville spring races.
Pit road troubles played a big role in the letdown as Larson was the lone HMS driver to avoid a pit-related problem. As for the other three teams, here is a driver-by-driver breakdown:
Final results from Martinsville. pic.twitter.com/wuYxAnhgYD
— Hendrick Motorsports (@TeamHendrick) March 30, 2025
Alex Bowman
Rolling off the grid in third, Martinsville appeared to be shaping up as a big opportunity for Alex Bowman to contend for a race win. The No. 48 team followed through on that promise early, scoring nine stage points with a runner-up finish to stage one.
However, when they pitted under caution on lap 125, Bowman’s day came undone when he left pit road with a loose left side tire. Bowman had no alternative but to come back down pit road to tighten the wheel, restarting at the tail of the field.
No. 48 crew chief Blake Harris attempted to regain track position by bringing Bowman to pit road off-sequence during stage three, but a caution shortly after their pit stop buried the No. 48 Chevrolet a lap down the rest of the way. To add insult to injury, Bowman got tagged for speeding on the team’s final stop.
All of this pit road calamity led to an underwhelming 27th-place finish for Bowman.
William Byron
The driver of the No. 24 HMS Chevrolet entered Sunday’s race as the reigning champion of the spring race at Martinsville. While not as fast as his teammates in qualifying, William Byron still took the initial green flag from the 10th position.
Byron’s problems started earlier than Bowman’s. On lap 30, during their first stop of the day, the No. 24 pit crew had a bear of a time affixing a fresh right front tire. This sent Byron plummeting down the order from ninth to outside the top 30.
In an effort to rally, the No. 24 team implemented a similar late-race strategy as the No. 48, as crew chief Rudy Fugle brought Byron to the service of his crew with 134 laps to go, the same lap as Bowman. Just like Bowman, the caution on lap 274 for Shane van Gisbergen’s loose wheel ruined that strategy.
Byron’s defense of last year’s Martinsville win came up well short with a 21st-place showing.
Chase Elliott
The No. 9 team’s pit lane mishap was smaller than those of the Nos. 24 and 48, but it was still had a significant bearing on the race’s outcome.
Elliott ended stage two in the runner-up spot, matching lap times with Hamlin. He continued to be Hamlin’s closest competition until the aforementioned lap 274 caution brought the leaders down pit road. Elliott entered pit road in second, but he left in the fourth position behind Hamlin, Bell, and Bubba Wallace.
It came down to less than two seconds in the pit stall as the No. 9 crew took 11.7 seconds to change four tires, compared to just 9.9 and 9.8 seconds for the No. 11 and No. 20 JGR crews, respectively.
Since passing under green was a tall task, Elliott could not get higher than fourth on the final run to the finish. With pit crews being more efficient and highly trained than ever before, the margin of error between a race-winning pit stop and a stop that costs two positions can be wafer thin, as Elliott and the No. 9 team learned on Sunday.
“It certainly didn’t help, for sure,” Elliott told Frontstretch about the last pit stop. “We really needed control [of the race], but unfortunately, I couldn’t get that back for us.”
So, there you have it, an uncharacteristically sloppy day in the pits for the normally solid HMS. Now, one weekend of issues is no cause for alarm, but HMS would do well to review these mistakes so they can improve going forward.
Other Pit Road Problems
- For the second race in a row, contact with another car on pit road hampered Josh Berry’s day. Wallace hit the left side of Berry’s No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing while leaving pit road. The contact may have jarred a battery loose, as Berry started having electrical issues after immediately after departing pit road. Berry never recovered, finishing four laps down in 32nd.
Trouble under caution for Josh Berry after contact on pit road with Bubba Wallace. #NASCARonFS1 pic.twitter.com/tQpYY0zYwg
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) March 30, 2025
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr. got caught speeding on pit road not once but twice in his No. 47 Hyak Motorsports Chevrolet. Stenhouse got back on the lead lap but only managed a 20th-place finish.
- As previously mentioned, the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing crew failed to properly tighten the right rear wheel on van Gisbergen’s Chevrolet. The wheel came off the racetrack, meaning a two-lap penalty in the race as well as an upcoming two-race suspension for the jackman and rear tire changer. Van Gisbergen, who struggled all weekend, finished six laps down in 34th.
Pit Crew of the Race: No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
We have our first repeat winner of the pit crew of the race award, as the No. 20 team previously earned the honor at Phoenix Raceway.
Where the No. 9 pit crew stumbled, the No. 20 team stepped up, and it all started with qualifying. Crew chief Adam Stevens brought a fast Toyota to The Paperclip, and Bell successfully piloted it to the pole. This gave the No. 20 team the first choice of pit stall, and they picked the No. 1 stall at the very end of pit road.
That stall selection came in handy on the final stop of the day. Bell entered pit road in fourth, but thanks to a 9.8-second stop from his crew and a good launch out of the first pit stall, Bell exited in the second position.
Though he was unable to find a way around Hamlin, Bell maintained his runner-up spot to the checkered flag. The No. 20 team regained some momentum they lost over the past two races, and it was a true team effort to get there.
Look Ahead to Next Week
Next Sunday, the drivers of the NASCAR Cup Series will go back in time with the annual throwback weekend at Darlington Raceway. The Goodyear 400 will go green shortly after 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 6, and Fox Sports 1 will carry the broadcast.
Perhaps no track on the Cup Series circuit eats away at Goodyear tires more than Darlington. Expect four fresh tires to be the call of the day every time down pit road at The Track Too Tough to Tame.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 as an iRacing contributor. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.