NASCAR: Bristol winner didn't even come close to scoring the most points

Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin earned his first victory of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season on Sunday afternoon at Bristol Motor Speedway, winning a chaotic Food City 500, which saw incredible tire falloff and a track record 54 lead changes. It was the first regular season race on the track's concrete surface since 2020.

Despite leading 163 of the 500 laps around the four-turn, 0.533-mile (0.858-kilometer) high-banked Bristol, Tennesse oval, the driver of the No. 11 Toyota only managed to capture four stage points, with all four coming thanks to a seventh place finish in the second stage.

As a result, five drivers actually ended up finishing the race with as many or more points than Hamlin, even though Hamlin won the race and scored the usual 40 points for doing so.

Denny Hamlin outscored, despite Bristol victory

RFK Racing's Brad Keselowski led all driver with 50 points scored on Sunday: seven from his fourth place finish in stage one, nine from his runner-up finish in stage two, and 34 from his third place finish in the race itself.

Joe Gibbs Racing's Ty Gibbs won both stage one and two to collect 20 stage points, and he added 28 more with a ninth place finish, giving him four points more than his teammate.

Three other drivers tied with Hamlin at 44 points: teammate Martin Truex Jr., Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson, and Legacy Motor Club's John Hunter Nemechek.

Truex scored four points with a seventh place finish in stage one and five more with a sixth place finish in stage two before adding 35 with a runner-up race finish. Larson scored nine points with a runner-up finish in stage one and three points with an eighth place finish in stage two before adding 32 with a fifth place race finish.

Nemechek scored six points with a fifth place finish in stage one and seven more with a fourth place finish in stage two before adding 31 with a career-best sixth place race finish.

This marks the second time this season that a race winner has been outscored, though when it happened the first time at Atlanta Motor Speedway, winner Daniel Suarez still finished second in total points scored, and the only driver who beat him was race runner-up Ryan Blaney.

Thanks to stage racing, it is mathematically possible for the driver who finished as low as 16th place to lead a race in total points scored, and it is mathematically possible for a race winner to finish a race 11th in points.