Denny Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing, scored his first win of the season at Martinsville Speedway. The dominant performance also ended his 31-race winless streak. It marked his 55th career Cup Series victory,

To a familiar mixture of cheers and boos, Denny Hamlin climbed onto his No. 11 Toyota’s doorsill and unfurled a blue flag emblazoned with “11 Against The World.”

Old can mean so much around Hamlin, who at age 44 was the oldest winner at NASCAR’s oldest track since a 47-year-old Rusty Wallace won for the final time in his Cup career in 2004. In this case, old was a good thing. It was a return to winning.

Denny Hamlin held the flag up proudly after his dominant win in Sunday’s race at Martinsville. “11 against the world,” the flag read, a nod to the Ohio State football team.

Hamlin's sixth career win at Martinsville moved him up the all-time ranks. Can he now lay claim to being the best NASCAR racer ever at the paperclip?

Denny Hamlin finally got his first win of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season on Sunday, as the Joe Gibbs Racing driver took the checkered flag at the Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia.

And the victory at Martinsville (the Virginia track a few hours west of his hometown of Chesterfield, a Richmond suburb) snapped two long droughts for Hamlin — a 31-race skid without a victory and a 10-year winless streak at the 0.526-mile oval where his six wins are more than any active Cup driver.