HOMESTEAD, Fla. – The record books will show Denny Hamlin swept all of the stages, led the most laps and won Sunday’s Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

What the record books won’t show is how hard Hamlin had to fight in the final 50 laps to earn the victory.

Hamlin was the race leader when the final round of green flag pit stops began with a little more than 50 laps left. Elliott, who was within a second of Hamlin in the second position as pit stops were beginning, seized an opportunity to leapfrog Hamlin by pitting before him.

Elliott made his pit stop with 50 laps left, with Hamlin following him down pit road one lap later. The call to pit one lap earlier paid off for Elliott, who emerged roughly 1.5 seconds ahead of Hamlin once the pit stop cycle concluded.

The native of Dawsonville, Ga., now had the lead, but that meant he now had to keep it and that was going to be easier said than done.

“I knew with three runs to go, my crew chief (Chris Gabehart) was giving me lap times and saying that the 9 (Elliott) had good stuff going when we had that big lead,” Hamlin said. “Really, I think our strong suit was being able to run a good lap time no matter where we were on the track. He was able to short pit us there. I wasn’t able to come to pit road, I kind of missed pit road there and he was able to get us on that cycle.

“I just knew if I ran the pace I knew I needed to save the tires that I was going to be good in the long run.”

Hamlin slowly started to chop into Elliott’s lead over the following laps and with 33 laps left he was only a few car lengths off Elliott’s rear bumper. Hamlin stayed close and waited for his opportunity, which would come a few laps later.

With 30 laps left Elliott caught the lap car of Joey Logano, with whom Elliott crashed while racing for a victory at Bristol Motor Speedway a few weeks ago, and attempted to put him a second lap down. Logano, however, had other ideas and drove aggressively in defense of his position.

That opened the door for Hamlin to make a move. Logano took Elliott’s line against the wall away in turns one and two, trapping Elliott on the bottom down the backstretch. Hamlin saw this and came roaring around the top, getting alongside Elliott as they raced into turn three.

With the momentum from the high side pushing him forward, Hamlin was able to pull clear of Elliott by the time they got to turn one on the next lap.

Now Hamlin had the lead, but the race wasn’t over as Elliott stayed right in his tire tracks. Elliott hunted Hamlin for the final 28 circuits, at times getting to within a car length of Hamlin’s bumper as they raced through slower traffic.

Despite Elliott’s best efforts, Hamlin was able to hang on get to the checkered flag first by .895 seconds to earn the 40th victory of his NASCAR Cup Series career. He’s the 20th driver in NASCAR history to earn 40 or more victories.

“Our car was really good. This is a setup based off of what we had in the fall here last year going for the championship,” Hamlin said after his third win of the season. “Had a strong car all day obviously with the laps led and was able to get around Chase there at the end. This whole FedEx team has just done a phenomenal job. This Camry is real special.

“It seems like the end of these races are Chase’s best suit. I knew that if I was just patient and ran the pace that I wanted and the pace I was comfortable with, we were going to be hard to beat in the long run.”

Elliott settled for second after leading 27 laps. Elliott didn’t specifically site Logano as costing him the lead late in the race, but Elliott did mention that he needs to get better at working through slower traffic.

“I just need to get through lap traffic better,” Elliott lamented. “I thought our Hooters Camaro was plenty good enough to win. I thought we executed a really nice race. I kept it out of the wall almost the whole race, got it there at the end. Proud of the effort, we’re bringing fast cars right now and everybody at HMS is working really hard to do that.”

Ryan Blaney finished third after leading 70 laps throughout the night. He was followed by rookie Tyler Reddick, who earned his first NASCAR Cup Series top-five with a fourth-place finish. Aric Almirola completed the top-five in fifth, his first top-five of the season.

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