You wonder what the guy has to do to break through at RIR.

Bribe Brian France?

Offer to send Doug Fritz's kids to grad school?

Appeal to the charitable instincts of all those Little E.'s and Jimmie Johnsons who keep denying him his rightful checkered flag?

Buy himself a good set of steel-belted radials?

Denny Hamlin's local, understand? He grew up in Chesterfield County, was schooled at Manchester High, started racing go-karts at 7, dreamed of becoming a major-leaguer.

Of winning in front of the homies in Richmond.

He'd been close before. Twice. He was second to video-games buddy Dale Earnhardt Jr. at RIR in 2006. He was third when Johnson won here last spring.

He was on the brink of snaring the brass ring last night.

And then, disaster.

He felt the tire - the right front - begin to go when it was punctured somewhere around the 379th lap. Till then, he looked like he was home free. Till then, no one in the joint could touch him. But with the tire deflating along with his hopes, Hamlin couldn't hold off Earnhardt and Kyle Busch, who both passed him with 17 laps to go.

Hamlin's race basically was done there and then. Adding to his woes, NASCAR flagged him for deliberately causing a caution - it was a desperation move on his part - and penalized him two laps. He finished 24th. He climbed from the car and tried to shrug off the pain.

"You can't whine about it," he said. "It just wasn't meant to be."

Until this stunning setback, Denny Hamlin was en route to having the mother of all weekends at RIR. He won Friday night's Nationwide race. He claimed the pole for the Sprint Cup event. Came last night, he was dominating the John Barleycorn 400 like M.J. used to dominate the Cavaliers, like Reagan dominated Mondale, like no one had dominated a NASCAR race since South Boston's Jeff Burton led all 300 laps at Loudon in the fall of 2000.

Hamlin led 381 of the first 382 last night.

A.J. Allmendinger stayed on the track when the caution flag waved on the 207th lap to earn five bonus points and a notation on the stat sheet.

Hamlin dusted him on Lap 208.

And everyone else before and after.

Until the comeuppance at the track where he's wanted to win more than anywhere else from the moment he latched onto a contract with Gibbs Racing after turning heads in the organization in December 2003.

The young man's been widening eyes ever since. He apprenticed in trucks and the Busch Series, got a trial run in the bigs toward the tail end of the 2005 campaign. He finished eighth at Charlotte in his Cup debut. He was eighth again a week later at tricky little Martinsville when - get this - he forfeited two laps for pit-road repairs and still motored back into the top 10.

"I think he's really going to be something to watch," was Jeff Gordon's summary judgment.

"American Idol" winners have gotten more tepid endorsements.

And Hamlin delivered, too - a Taylor Hicks on asphalt. He was the Cup tour's top rookie in 2006, when he won twice and wound up third in the standings. He dipped a tad to 12th last season - he was sixth entering the playoffs - and claimed another win. He visited victory lane again five weeks ago at Martinsville.

Martinsville is in Virginia, in case you flunked Geography 101.

It's sorta-kinda home for Hamlin.

But not like Richmond.

Not like RIR.

This is his turf - the place he aimed for when he was coming up through the ranks at Southside, Amelia, Langley, Southampton, proving-grounds bullrings where every teenager thinks he's the next Gordon or Stewart or Busch or Harvick.

Or, if you're talking here and now, the next Denny Hamlin.

So he wanted this one.

Wanted it bad.

And didn't get it.

"Just a bummer deal for him," Busch said. "He had the field covered."

But not the equipment.

Not one lousy tire.

One crummy piece of some something lying on the track in wait for him to find it where the rubber meets the road.

Bummer indeed.