Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 Interstate Batteries Toyota, leads Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 FedEx Freight Toyota, Kasey Kahne, driver of the #5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet, and Clint Bowyer, driver of the #15 5-hour Energy Toyota, early in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series LENOX Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 15, 2012 in Loudon, New Hampshire.
(July 14, 2012 – Source: Tom Pennington/Getty Images North America)

(PhatzRadio / USA Today) — LOUDON, N.H. – Kasey Kahne rightfully was talking like a title contender after Sunday’s victory in the Lenox Industrial Tools 301.

Somehow, Denny Hamlin was, too, despite having the win ripped away on a gut-wrenching gaffe with crew chief Darian Grubb.

“We’re going to win the one that counts, and that’s in September,” Hamlin said, referring to the Sprint Cup Series’ next visit to New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

RESULTS: Lenox Industrial Tools 301
MORE: Hendrick vs. Gibbs all day in Loudon
STANDINGS: Sprint Cup points leaders

Sunday’s win still counted plenty for Kahne. The Hendrick Motorsports driver assumed a hammerlock grip on a wild-card bid for the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship run with his second victory.

No other driver outside the top 10 has more than one win, and Kahne’s ranking of 12th in the standings puts his No. 5 Chevrolet in strong position to take one of the two wild cards reserved for the winningest drivers ranked 11th through 20th because points are the tiebreaker.

“I feel good about where we’re at now,” Kahne said after his 14th Cup victory. “We just have to stay consistent, stay after it, hopefully win a couple more races.”

Clint Bowyer, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brad Keselowski rounded out Sunday’s top five.

With two victories and a fifth-place ranking, Hamlin is a virtual lock for the Chase. But a win would have tied him with Brad Keselowski and Tony Stewart for bonus points (three per win) to start the 10-race title run, which will begin in two months at Chicagoland Speedway and then come to New Hampshire.

Hamlin took it all in stride despite leading a race-high 150 laps in his No. 11 Toyota. On the final stop, he fell from first to 13th because Grubb thought Hamlin wanted four tires instead of two. Over the final 40 laps on a 1.058-mile oval known for its difficulty in fostering passes, Hamlin charged to second.

“Proud of our team; we had an amazing race car,” he said. “We lost three points today; that’s about it. When it really counts in a few months, we know we’re going to have something pretty strong.”

It still was a disappointing end to a dominant weekend for Hamlin, who qualified third Friday and paced both of Saturday’s practices with lead engineer Mike Wheeler calling the shots in place of Grubb.

It wasn’t until Sunday that Grubb, who stayed in North Carolina because his wife had their second child last Monday, was in charge of the team, but Hamlin said his absence didn’t contribute to the critical error.

“The reason is because we discussed things we were going to do before the race even started as far as tire strategy,” Hamlin said.

The impetus for the mistake was Hamlin and Grubb had roughly 45 seconds to make their decision because the pace car picked up the field so quickly, and they were first to enter the pits. Grubb, who didn’t ask Hamlin directly whether he wanted two or four, took “100% of the blame” on the team’s radio, but his driver was forgiving.

“It was a perfect storm,” Hamlin said. “We just didn’t have enough time to be 100% clear with each other.” It was just a bad circumstance.”

Name-checking his sports psychologist, Bob Rotella (“Think forward!” Hamlin said of his advice), the Joe Gibbs Racing driver kept ticking off the positives — starting with the improvement since Grubb (who led Stewart to last year’s championship) joined a team that finished ninth in 2011 points.

“Darian has won me a couple races more than he’s taken away from me,” Hamlin said. “I’ve been through this long enough to know you’re going to have plenty more chances in the future, especially the way we’re running.”

Though he isn’t winning as often, Hamlin thinks he is running nearly as well as when he led the circuit with eight wins and finished runner-up in 2010 points.

“We’re more competitive now,” he said. “Maybe not the all-out speed, but we’re dangerously close to where we were in 2010.”

For the first time in three years, it’s likely Kahne will join Hamlin in the Chase, though he might need one more win to feel secure.

“Yeah, it’s probably never enough,” Kahne said. “But I think three would put you in a real good spot. We have some really good tracks coming up, and I like my car a lot, so I think we’ll be in good shape.”