Denny Hamlin has come so close to winning many races in the past couple of years, only to be thwarted by incidents out of control, including two weeks ago at Bristol when he was leading during a green-white-checkered restart when a fuel pick-up issue left him with a disappointing 6th place finish.

However, Hamlin found himself in a victory lane he's been seeking since he started his Cup series career, the one in Martinsville, a track located in his home state of Virginia.

"First Virginia win for me," Hamlin said. "Finally. The curse is over, I think. I hope. We've had such bad luck over these first few weeks."

Hamlin earned the victory by rebounding from an early mis-communication when he came down pit road virtually by himself and fell back in the running order. After making his way back into the top-5, he got the track position he needed by taking fuel only on his final pit stop.

That put him behind just Jeff Burton, Brian Vickers and Carl Edwards, who all had chose not to stop. Hamlin cut underneath each to catapult into the lead, and held off a final charge from Jeff Gordon, who was recovering from an early race accident, to claim his first victory of the year and fourth of his career.

"It finally feels good to come here and get a win," said Hamlin, a native of Chesterfield, Virginia. "Can't wait, man. This is a sign of things to come, I believe."

As expected, Hendrick Motorsports was the team to beat at Martinsville, as Gordon won the pole and the team led a combined 371 of the 500 laps run on the .526 mile track. However it was Hamlin who led the final 74 laps. It was still a good day for the organization that hasn't had much going for it this season, as it had all four cars in the top-10, with Gordon 2nd, Jimmie Johnson 4th, Dale Earnhardt Jr. 6th and Casey Mears 7th.



Burton followed his Bristol win with a 3rd place finish, but after the race was upset with the driving of rookie Michael McDowell, who was making his first career start.

"We had one driver that I thought was real inconsiderate," Burton said of McDowell, who Burton thought could have done a better job of getting out of the leader cars' way in the final laps. "He better learn some manners or he's going to get tossed."

Burton will leave Martinsville the point leader after Kyle Busch suffered from rear-gear troubles that put him several laps down and left him with a 38th place finish, falling to 5th in points.

Michael Waltrip finished 35th in the race that took place just a few days after Jack Roush, co-owner of Roush/Fenway Racing, accused Waltrip's team of stealing a sway bar from a Roush team at Dover last fall.

"We wound up with a swaybar there somehow," Waltrip said. "I promise you no one went to their tool box and swiped it. This is not intellectual espionage."

Roush, however, had ideas of his own.

"I found out about it and I wanted to go supersonic," Roush said. "[I said,] 'We're going up there. We're going to get a search warrant. We're going to get the bar. It's intellectual espionage that's going on here. They've stolen the part. They've got access to it. They've had an opportunity to see what it does, see what its efficiency for weight and function are, and we've been damaged. We've been harmed by this theft.'"

Many drivers, such as Jeff Gordon, merely laughed and joked about Roush's accusation, but one driver did support the owner, and it was Gordon's teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr.

"Another team walked over to their pit box and stole something off of it?" Earnhardt Jr. said. "That really happened? Wow. If that happened, whoever did it ought not to have a hard card (to access the garage area) anymore, hands down....No second chances there."