HAMPTON, Ga. - Roaring into the final lap of the AdvoCare 500, Denny Hamlin had one determined driver behind him and two distinct rewards awaiting him at the checkered flag.
He earned both with his second consecutive Sprint Cup victory, holding off a furious charge by Jeff Gordon to win Sunday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who went from third to first on a pit stop during a yellow with five laps remaining of a scheduled 325, moved into the provisional No. 1 seed in the Chase for the Sprint Cup with his fourth win of the season.
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And perhaps just as importantly, he kept teammate Kyle Bush in the final wild card spot for the Chase ahead of Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet, which settled for second in a green-white-checkered finish.
"First, I wanted to win to be the No. 1 seed," Hamlin said. "Second, that was going to knock my teammate out of the Chase, and we couldn't afford that. I'm a Joe Gibbs Racing blood guy for life. We need Kyle in there, and if Jeff won that race, it was going to be all over."
Gordon was kicking himself afterward for not applying the bumper to Hamlin's No. 11 Toyota.
"I'm just mad at myself right now," the four-time champion said. "I don't know, I guess I'm just getting soft in my old age. I'm too nice because 15 years ago I would have just moved him right up the racetrack. I don't know why I didn't do that. I thought I could get to his quarter panel and slow him down and stay there. But I got there, I just carried too much speed into (turn) 3, and it pushed up the racetrack."
The Hendrick Motorsports driver likely will need a victory next week at Richmond International Raceway to make the Chase.
"I should have just run into (Hamlin) going into three and moved him up the race track and we would have been sitting in victory lane right now," Gordon said. "This Chase is too important for me to be in it and not to make a move like that....I wouldn't have wanted to wreck him, but I would have liked to have that one over again."
Hamlin said he left an opening for Gordon off turn 2 by "mirror driving" in the closing laps.
"I drove in the corner way beyond my talent level for those last couple laps, and it just shot me up the racetrack and got me out of line and gave him the opportunity," Hamlin said. "I knew how desperate he was (to win), but he knew that we could not let him win. It was critical for our team to not let Jeff get a win."
Hamlin said he felt Gordon didn't slam him because the drivers "have a mutual respect. I haven't moved him out of the way for a win or anything like that my entire career. So I'm sure that had something to do with it. Maybe if it's somebody else, he doesn't even think twice. But I feel like I've earned that respect that I should have got the last lap, and he gave it to me. Roles reversed, he's going to get that same respect from me."
Brad Keselowski finished third, followed by Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick, who led 101 of the first 242 laps.
Matt Kenseth, Truex, Clint Bowyer, Keselowski, Hamlin, Harvick and Tony Stewart clinched Chase berths, joining Jimmie Johnson, Greg Biffle and Dale Earnhardt Jr. as official championship contenders.
Several drivers on the Chase bubble struggled in the penultimate race before NASCAR's "regular season" ends. After next weekend's race at Richmond International Raceway, the Chase's 12-driver field for the 10-race title hunt will be set.
Kasey Kahne, who has held a firm grip on the top wild-card spot for six weeks since earning his second victory at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, opened the door slightly to falling out of the Chase with a 24th, his worst finish in nearly three months.
Yet Kahne still is in good position with two victories because so many drivers around him struggled Sunday. Carl Edwards' Chase bid might have expired when the engine in his No. 99 Ford did on lap 264.
Edwards, who entered the race ranked 12th in points, was running sixth and seemed to have a shot at making the Chase by cracking the top 10 or as a wild card.
But in suffering his third finish of 30th or worse this year, Edwards is in serious jeopardy of missing the Chase after finishing runner-up in points last season. The Roush Fenway Racing driver has two top-fives this season, but he did lead a race-high 206 laps at Richmond in April.
"The real big picture? I'm not a real religious person, but I feel like somebody's trying to teach me a lesson," Edwards said. "This year has just been amazing in a bad luck kind of way.
"We're going to Richmond, where anything can happen. Hopefully whatever happens it involves us winning the race and making this Chase. We don't quit, but it's almost too much to put into words, so frustrating and shocking that this can happen."
A day that got off to a rough start for Stewart didn't improve under the lights. After his Stewart-Haas Racing team revealed a few hours before the race that Office Depot wouldn't return as a co-primary sponsor of the three-time champion in 2013, Stewart started on the pole position for the first time this season and led eight of the first nine laps.
But the defending series champion, who won at Atlanta two years ago, quickly faded out of the top 10 and never was a factor while struggling with the handling of his No. 14 Chevrolet. He finished 22nd.
Stewart will make the Chase regardless, but he would squander nine bonus points (by virtue of having three wins) if he falls out of the top 10.
The race's complexion changed on a restart with 56 laps remaining by a multicar crash involving Johnson, Ryan Newman and Sam Hornish Jr. During the yellow flag, Hamlin, Truex, Busch and Kenseth elected to stay out of the pits while the other lead-lap cars pitted.
Truex passed Hamlin for the lead with 44 laps to go and began pulling away in his No. 56 Toyota as the other cars that didn't pit began to fade.
But Gordon, seeking a win that would help shore up his Chase wild-card bid, sliced through traffic and moved up to second with 20 laps to go. With 10 laps remaining, Gordon began cutting the gap as Truex began conserving fuel.
But Truex, who had announced a contract extension Friday with Michael Waltrip Racing, still seemed headed for a win until Jamie McMurray's frontstretch crash brought out the final caution and sent the lead-lap cars into the pits, where Truex lost the lead to Hamlin. On the final restart, he spun the tires as Gordon and Hamlin scooted away.
"All night long I had trouble when I was on the outside lane," said Truex, who is winless despite being fifth in points. "It just wasn't meant to be again, I guess. It just (stinks) when you have one locked up like that and a caution comes out. Just wasn't good enough."
With teammate Bowyer, Truex did clinch the first two Chase berths in the six-season history of MWR in Sprint Cup
"There will be plenty of positives," Truex said. "People keep asking, 'When are you going to win?' We're close."