Three straight finishes outside the top 10 for Denny Hamlin these days counts as a rough patch.

He was once again smooth as they get Thursday night.

Hamlin hung around the front of the pack all night, avoiding trouble that cost several playoff contenders in the final stage, then breezed past Kevin Harvick for the lead in the closing laps. Hamlin then held off charging Brad Keselowski for his NASCAR Cup Series-leading fifth victory of the season and 42nd overall. He also won for the second straight time at Kansas Speedway.

“I don’t know we had the best car. We definitely had a top-three car all day,” Hamlin said after his burnout in front of the empty grandstands. “We just went for it there at the end. The pit crew did an amazing job getting us out there in front.”

Hamlin had struggled the past three weeks, failing to finish better than 12th. But after showing good speed early, his Joe Gibbs Racing team made all the right calls during a crash-filled final stage. Keselowski finished second and Martin Truex Jr. came across third. Harvick wound up sliding to fourth and Erik Jones capped a big day for the Gibbs boys in fifth.

William Byron led the race as he chased his first career race, but he slide backward after a late caution and wound up finishing 10th. Alex Bowman also made a charge to the lead but finished behind Aric Almirola and Cole Custer in eighth.

The youngsters wound up leaving it to the veterans to battle it out over the final laps.

“We got to the lead but we just went dead sideways after about four or five laps,” said Harvick, who had been tied with Hamlin with four wins. “We were just holding on hoping for another restart, because we could hang for a couple laps.”

Truex may have had the fastest car on the track by the end of the night, which began with temperatures in the mid-90s and a heat index approaching triple digits. But he ran out of time trying chase down his teammate.

“It would have been difficult to pass him,” Truex said about Hamlin. “It was a battle all night just to get track position. These things are so difficult in traffic. You lose a few more spots than you hope on a restart and you just have to dig.”

Joey Logano led early before his night really ended in disaster — and took some playoff contenders with him.

His problems began when a tire got loose on pit road during the first stage, sending him to the back. He was working his way forward early in the final stage when his left front tire went down, sending Logano into the outside wall. Matt DiBenedetto and Jimmie Johnson, the last two drivers on the good side of the playoff cut line, sustained heavy damage as the field checked up. So did Austin Dillon, who was the surprise winner last weekend at Texas.

“I’m pretty freaking irritated. We’ve had garbage luck the last few weeks,” DiBenedetto said. “We have no horsepower. It takes us 45 minutes to get going. The restarts as just wild. But that’s what is happening.”

Logano said he felt his tire going down just before green but thought “it wasn’t bad.”

“Maybe it was bad judgment on my part,” Logano said, “and I didn’t want to lose any track position for something that wasn’t bad. It’s one of those judgment calls. I just feel bad for everyone else.”

Another wreck during the next always-chaotic Kansas restart collected Ryan Preece, Chris Buescher, Ryan Newman and Christopher Bell. Preece hit the inside wall with such force that his car leaped several feet into the air.

It would have been an exciting show for fans if there was any. After about 20,000 wore masks and braved stifling heat in Texas, the grandstands were again empty at Kansas. Soaring numbers of positive COVID-19 tests forced speedway officials to run this weekend — including upcoming races in the Xfinity, Truck and ARCA series — without any fans.

The next race at New Hampshire can have about 19,000 fans. The following doubleheader at Michigan will not have any.

Kyle Busch finally had something go right during his frustrating season. The defending series champ, whose only win in his last 41 starts in the Cup Series came in last year’s finale, held off Hamlin and Truex to win his first stage this year.

It was another race between teammates on Stage 2. This time, it was Keselowski getting around Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney — who was dominant at Texas but failed to win — on the penultimate lap to take the stage.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s challenging year continued when he went to the garage early with a mechanical problem. It also was a rough night for Bubba Wallace, who spun early in the race coming out of Turn 4 and then plowed into Matt Kenseth when he spun in the middle of the same turn early in the final stage.

“We’ve had some really bad weeks,” Stenhouse said. “Lost the balance a little bit but felt like we were pretty close. But I don’t know, a fire started in the cockpit. Something electrical in the dash.”

A report in AFP states that the 2020 Formula 1 season, delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, will start on July 5 in Austria and the first eight races will take place in Europe between July and September, according to the new calendar formalized on Tuesday.

A second GP will follow in Austria (on the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg) on ​​July 12, before Hungary (on the Hungaroring in Budapest) on July 19, Great Britain (at Silverstone) on August 2 and 9, Spain (on the Barcelona-Catalonia circuit in Montmelo) on August 16, Belgium (at Spa-Francorchamps) on August 30 and Italy (in Monza) on September 6.

"Due to the current fluidity of the Covid-19 situation at the international level, the details of the full calendar will be finalized in the coming weeks, with the hope of having a total of 15 to 18 races by the end of the season in December, "said the promoter of F1, Formula 1, and its regulatory body, the International Automobile Federation (FIA), in a joint statement.

"As previously indicated, it is currently planned that the first races will take place behind closed doors" for health reasons, specify the authorities, which then hope to be able to bring back the fans "when it will be possible to do so safely".

To allow racing to resume, the FIA ​​and F1 have also put in place a plan to combat the spread of the new coronavirus.

Among the precautions taken are the limitation of the number of people on the paddock, health checks on departure for the host country, on arrival, then every two days. The teams will be isolated from each other on the circuits, as well as from the general public outside (international flights, local transport, hotels).

The season should have started in mid-March in Australia but this GP was canceled in extremis following the discovery of a case within the McLaren team.

Several races have been postponed (Bahrain, Vietnam, China, Spain, Azerbaijan, Canada, Great Britain) or canceled (Australia, Monaco, France, Netherlands).

The calendar of the first eight races of the F1 2020 season:

3-5 July: Austrian Grand Prix (Spielberg)

July 10-12: Grand Prix of Styria (Spielberg)

July 17-19: Hungarian Grand Prix (Budapest)

July 31 – August 2: British Grand Prix (Silverstone)

August 7-9: Grand Prix for the 70th anniversary of F1 (Silverstone)

August 14-16: Spanish Grand Prix (Barcelona)

August 28-30: Belgian Grand Prix (Spa-Francorchamps)

September 4-6: Italian Grand Prix (Monza)

Also Read:

F1 SEASON TO OPEN IN AUSTRIA AFTER GOVERNMENT BACKS SPIELBERG DOUBLE ACT

MOTOGP: VALENTINO ROSSI WON'T GO TO YAMAHA-SRT JUST FOR A FAREWELL TOUR

MOTO: THE MARQUEZ BROTHERS RESUME TRAINING ON MOTOCROSS

SINGAPORE F1 CAN'T BE HELD BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: ORGANIZERS

BEST THRILLER CAR MOVIES OF ALL TIME TO WATCH IN THIS LOCKDOWN

PUBG MOBILE PRO LEAGUE SOUTH ASIA 2020 ONLINE DUE TO CORONAVIRUS

PUZZLER GAME: MONUMENT VALLEY 2 IS CURRENTLY FREE ON IOS AND ANDROID

HOW TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR VEHICLES DURING LOCKDOWN

 

Thunderstorms Sunday forced NASCAR to postpone the Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway that was to mark the return of more fans to the track.

The race, which was pushed back to 2 p.m. CDT on Monday, is the first amid the coronavirus pandemic in which NASCAR opened the gates for up to 5,000 fans. Those in the grandstands were urged to seek shelter roughly 30 minutes before the scheduled start, leading to a two-plus hour wait.

The addition of fans and the ban of Confederate flags weren’t the only changes set to be on display in the race.

NASCAR implemented new rules in response to Ryan Newman’s harrowing accident when racing for the win on the final lap at Daytona in February.

The changes include the elimination of aero ducts at superspeedway tracks, a reduction in size of throttle body and requiring slip tape to be applied along the entire length of the lower rearward facing surfaces of the rear bumper cover.

Teams headed to Talladega without any practical knowledge of their effect. Then there’s the still-minimal but increased fan presence.

NASCAR allowed 1,000 military members to attend last weekend’s rain-disrupted race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The event was stopped several times for more than three hours of total delays.

NASCAR has banned the Confederate flag from being displayed at its events but supporters of the symbol still managed to be seen Sunday. Vehicles lined the boulevard outside the speedway waving the flag and a plane flew above the track pulling a banner of the Confederate flag that said “Defund NASCAR.”

NASCAR has not stated how exactly it plans to stop fans from displaying the flag on track property and none of the instances Sunday at Talladega were inside the facility.

Denny Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing were set to run with an all-black paint scheme honoring the National Civil Rights Museum, with the museum’s logo on the hood. Sponsor FedEx won’t be displayed on the car.

The flag ban is another statement for NASCAR.

Fan David Radvansky, who started coming to Talladega in the 1990s when his father parked cars at races, was among fans applauding NASCAR’s decision to ban the Confederate flags.

“I don’t think there’s a place for it in NASCAR, to be honest with you,” the 32-year-old said. “That doesn’t sit well with all the good ole boys but it is what it is.”

But the Confederate flags were still selling at Ed Sugg’s merchandise tent across from the track.

“They’re doing very well,” said the Helena, Alabama resident, who has been selling an array of wares at NASCAR races for 21 years. “People are disappointed that NASCAR has taken that stance. It’s been around for as long as all of us have been. I don’t think anybody really connects it to any kind of racism or anything. It’s just a Southern thing. It’s transparent. It’s just a heritage thing.”