Hamlin beat Martin Truex, Jr.in the closest margin of victory (0.010 seconds) in the history of the Daytona 500. “I mean, it’s just the best”, Hamlin said after winning the closest Daytona 500 in its 58-year history. Hamlin and Busch each won one of the exhibition races at Daytona leading up to the Daytona 500.
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Hamlin, driving the No. 11 FedEx Toyota, came out of Turn 4 with serious momentum and benefiting from a strong push from Kevin Harvick (No. 4 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet). I heard on the radio people were all insane, excited.
After winning Sunday’s Great American Race, Hamlin dedicated the victory to J.D. Gibbs.
“The greatest advice I’ve gotten is from Dale (Earnhardt) Jr., Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson”, Hamlin said.
It’s a glamorous lifestyle, but it came with a catch: Failure to win big races and championships opened up Hamlin to criticism that he was incapable of taking the next step in his career. Amelia won four races including a qualifier at Daytona earlier this week and never finished lower than third in seven starts over the past year. Maybe it was just me, but I felt the excitement of this years race, something I haven’t felt in years.
The NASCAR season will continue next Sunday with the Fold Of Honor Quiktrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
That’s tough luck on Truex, who had never won the iconic race either. Brian Vickers, pinch-hitting for injured team co-owner Tony Stewart, was in the top five briefly near the end, then faded badly at crunch time and ended up 26th. “When I saw a gap open like that, you’ve got to fill it for your race team”.
An official hands Denny Hamlin (11) the checkered flag as Hamlin celebrates after winning the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Feb. 21, 2016, in Daytona Beach, Fla. I missed it by a little bit on the date.
Hamlin had led nearly half the race but with one lap to go sat fourth before making a daring push to the front, brushing past 2009 and 2012 victor Kenseth, who lost control and dropped back into the pack before regaining control.
At the same time, when that pass happened, the field got slowed up slightly, but not one driver made the mistake of getting too aggressive, and spin one out. “I lost it in the last second”. He just shot out that last couple inches on me right before the line.
See what else Paddock had to say about the race in the video above. We all want to win. Eventually you got to just kick the thing in. So stay tuned, and we should have a much fairer pictures of proceedings in the days to come. There’s a million things you could do differently, but I did what I thought I should do at the time to try to win.
The 35-year-old now is in the Chase for the Sprint Cup in his first race with new crew chief Mike Wheeler and finally has a 500.
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“I wanted to pull out in front of the top line like Denny did, but I just wasn’t sure how fast our vehicle was”, Edwards said.
