Denny Hamlin led 381 of the first 382 laps in last night's Dan Lowry 400 at Richmond International Raceway. Then, check.

A check was the shape of the cut in his right front tire. Hamlin, formerly of Chesterfield, finished 24th.

"You can't whine about it. It just wasn't meant to be," said Hamlin. "There's a better time for us to win, evidently. Today is just not our day."

Hamlin started on the pole, and won Friday night's Nationwide Series Lipton Tea 250. A Sprint Cup victory would have made the weekend the most memorable of the Manchester High School graduate's life.

It was headed that way. Hamlin was clearly in charge most of the night.

"You don't have days like this," Hamlin said. "Dominating days like this just don't happen. Usually when it does, you have an issue at the end. So to me, it almost wasn't that surprising."

He referred to "issues" he had previously, at Bristol and other tracks. "You just got to figure out what's going on," Hamlin said of his misfortune.

Hamlin felt the tire "issue" as soon as it happened. He ran over something. Hamlin's right front tire started leaking. He hoped it would last through the rest of the race. It didn't.

"It just kept getting worse and worse," he said. "There was just nothing we could do there."

Hamlin ended up being penalized - held for two laps - for stopping on the track to bring out a caution.

"That was just a kick in the face after a bad deal anyway," Hamlin said. "So, it is what it is. What's the difference? We didn't win. If it's 25th, or 10th, or wherever we would have been, or 15th one lap down. It doesn't matter at this point."

He had never led so many laps.

"I was in complete 'ride' mode all race long," Hamlin said, "letting guys get close to me, then just pulling back away from them at leisure. We had the car to beat still after that last pit stop [for a caution on Lap 355].

"It was everything we needed, and I was just going to sit there and ride."

Then, check. Hamlin suggested it would have been painful at any track. He conceded it was particularly shocking here, 20 minutes from where he grew up.

"You've got to have things going your way. I had things go my way [Friday] night, and maybe shouldn't have won," Hamlin said. "And this one, we should have won, and didn't. It balances itself in the end.

"Of course, I would have loved to win this one instead of [Friday] night . . . It's just another win that slipped away from us."