Hamlin wins Busch race at Darlington

Hamlin dominated the race, leading the most laps and taking advantage of the battle for second place that unfolded behind him in the closing laps between points leader Carl Edwards and a charging Mark Martin.

"Our car was really good all day long," said Hamlin. "We kind of took it easy right there at the beginning, letting those guys lead a little bit.

"Our car wasn't great then but it was good enough to lead but we just wanted to size them up and see what they had. Our car came through at the end."

In the last restart, with six laps to go, Mark Martin looked as the man most capable of taking the fight to Hamlin, but after his long scrap with Edwards he was only able to get by him with two laps to go, when Hamlin already had built a comfortable lead up front.

"We did have a great car," said a happy Martin after completing his first race for Hendrick Motorsports in the No. 5 car, finishing second. "I want to thank Rick Hendrick for letting me drive. To be able to drive for his organisation means a lot to me."

The race was incident-packed all the way, with ten cautions coming out during the 147 laps, matching the event record for yellow flags.

There were seven accidents and even a red flag was needed to allow officials to clear Bobby Labonte's car from the track after he smashed into the inside wall with 11 laps to go.

Matt Kenseth looked as a contender for victory, but his day ended also against the wall after he was tapped from behind with 36 laps to go. He had overtaken Hamlin to lead the race early on but was down in 16th when he crashed, having run out of pit sequence with the leaders.

Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman had a tough battle going on for a few laps, with both cars making contact a few times while battling to get to the front.

Newman eventually spun after picking up a puncture due to the contact he had, although he eventually finished 11th, while Stewart was seventh in the No. 33 KHI car.

Juan Pablo Montoya impressed by saving his car from hitting the wall early on after being hit from behind by Regan Smith. He didn't feel comfortable with his No. 42 Dodge all night but still managed to finish 15th and on the lead lap.

"[The car] was just really tight all day," Montoya said. "I had a decent car, it's just as the night went on it got tighter and tighter and tighter and that was it.

"At the beginning we were just falling back and Steven Wallace hit me in the pits. You can only go as fast as the car will give you and that's it, you know."

Edwards has increased his lead in the driver standings to 433 points to Kevin Harvick, who finished tenth. David Reutimann has moved into third place despite finishing the race down in 24th.

Pos  Driver                 Make       Laps
 1.  Denny Hamlin           Chevrolet   147
 2.  Mark Martin            Chevrolet   147
 3.  Carl Edwards           Ford        147
 4.  Jeff Burton            Chevrolet   147
 5.  Clint Bowyer           Chevrolet   147
 6.  Jason Leffler          Toyota      147
 7.  Tony Stewart           Chevrolet   147
 8.  Greg Biffle            Ford        147
 9.  Casey Mears            Chevrolet   147
10.  Kevin Harvick          Chevrolet   147
11.  Ryan Newman            Dodge       147
12.  Regan Smith            Chevrolet   147
13.  David Ragan            Ford        147
14.  Jason Keller           Chevrolet   147
15.  Juan Montoya           Dodge       147
16.  J.J. Yeley             Chevrolet   147
17.  Scott Riggs            Dodge       147
18.  Mike Bliss             Dodge       147
19.  Marcos Ambrose         Ford        147
20.  Bobby Hamilton Jr      Ford        147
21.  Ward Burton            Ford        147
22.  Paul Menard            Chevrolet   147
23.  Mike Wallace           Chevrolet   147
24.  David Reutimann        Toyota      147
25.  Derrike Cope           Chevrolet   147
26.  Stephen Leicht         Ford        147
27.  Shane Huffman          Chevrolet   147
28.  Kyle Krisiloff         Ford        146
29.  Ron Young              Chevrolet   146
30.  David Stremme          Dodge       145
31.  Dave Blaney            Toyota      145
32.  Jon Wood               Ford        145
33.  David Gilliland        Ford        140
34.  Bobby Labonte          Chevrolet   136
35.  Brent Sherman          Chevrolet   128
36.  Brad Keselowski        Chevrolet   113
37.  Matt Kenseth           Ford        111
38.  Todd Kluever           Ford        106
39.  Steve Wallace          Dodge       104
40.  Eric McClure           Chevrolet    94
41.  Aric Almirola          Chevrolet    79
42.  Stanton Barrett        Chevrolet    29
43.  Morgan Shepherd        Chevrolet     7