LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Denny Hamlin dominated Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to win his 61^st career NASCAR Cup Series victory.

With the win, Hamlin surpasses Kevin Harvick as the 10^th winningest driver at NASCAR’s highest level. On Sunday, Hamlin started the race in second in the No. 11 Yahoo! Toyota, overcame a Lap 83 pit road speeding penalty and led a race high of 134 laps. Throughout the day, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Christopher Bell has been a strong competitor, but with 49 laps to go, Hamlin pulled off the eventual race-winning pass following a restart.

“I mean, this is a family sport,” Hamlin said. “My family obviously had so much sacrifice to help me get here. Now that I’ve grown, generations of Hamlins following me. It’s great Mom gets to see this. I know Dad’s still saying, That’s my boy. Hell of a day (smiling).

Hamlin’s first series win came at Pocono Raceway back in 2006, and since then, he has won at least one race each season, with the exception to a winless 2018 season. On Sunday, Hamlin became a little emotional reminiscing about his career and his father who recently passed away.

“My name stands out amongst — there’s the legends of the sport,” Hamlin said. “I feel very fortunate to be on the list. Those guys were far more talented than I have ever thought about being. I just work really hard. I still to this day work really hard at my craft to try to continue to get better.

 “Days like today certainly make me feel happy about where I’m at in the sport still and what I can still do.”

Chase Elliott finished second in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet. At the end of the race, Elliott was coming for Hamlin. In fact, he was running faster laps with five laps to go, but he came up just short; however, the run marked his best of the season.

“It was definitely better there towards the end than we had started the run,” Elliott said. “I thought there might be an opportunity. I knew that he was starting to get tight there at the end of runs.

“Yeah, man, as bummed as I am to come up that close to a win, I have to kind of bring myself back to a reality check, how much better we ran today than we’ve been running.”

William Byron finished third, followed by Bell and Ty Gibbs. Rounding out the top-10 was Chris Buescher, Kyle Larson, Chase Briscoe, Bubba Wallace and Brad Keselowski.

Bell won Stage 1, and Byron won Stage 2.

There were 21 lead changes among nine drivers.

There was only one caution for an accident, and it occurred on Lap 212, Connor Zilisch ran into the back of Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who was pitting under green.

Tyler Reddick leads his 23XI Racing teammate, Wallace in the standings by 61 points.

The NASCAR Cup Series will visit Darlington Raceway on Sunday, March 22, for the Goodyear 400. Live coverage will broadcast on FS1 at 3 p.m. ET

Photo Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images