The Daytona 500 belongs to Joe Gibbs Racing for the first time in 23 years, but the NASCAR team’s Super Bowl-winning owner had only his son to thank for signing race-winner Denny Hamlin 11 years prior.
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“I haven’t gotten to sleep yet”, Hamlin said on the Dan Patrick Show during one of the many stops on his Daytona 500 Champion’s media tour. With Junior out, Hamlin became the clear favorite, if he could get his vehicle in clean air. Starting a second line on the outside, Hamlin got a push from Kevin Harvick that allowed him to catch Kenseth. 010 seconds-roughly four inches – as the cars crossed the line in a photo finish.
Hamlin moved up from go-karts to stock cars, winning the first stock auto race he competed in at Langley Speedway in Hampton, VA. He moved up to Late Models in 2000, winning 10 races in 2002 in this division. While those aspects of racing are fun to watch during any other race on 36-event season in the Sprint Cup Serious, The Daytona 500 should present drivers with a special kind of challenge.
“You couldn’t have written a better ending”, he said after the race.
Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Matt Kenseth, seemed destined for his third career Daytona 500 victory, pacing the field down the backstretch. Just like Bill Elliott’s auto. “I take pride in lifting the trophy on this one”. “I assumed we won when that happened”, said Denny Hamlin in the post-race interview, after the first Daytona 500 win of his career. “It’s just the circumstances, J.D. Gibbs, who found me about 12, 13 years ago, it’s his birthday today, he’s been so pivotal to myself and my team and supporting me for the past 11 years”. “I feel like we did a decent job and let’s move on to the next one”.
Earnhardt’s race ended in the same corner on Lap 170.
Certainly, a lot has changed in 10 years with JGR moving from Chevy to Toyota and expanding from two to three teams in 2005 – and eventually four teams with Edwards last year. That’s the reason why it means so much when you do it. We came here with real good cars, real good teams and worked real hard at it.
“I knew it was really close”, he said.
It will be the second most wagered upon a race of the year in Nevada next to the Las Vegas NASCAR weekend.
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.
As the race developed, the question wasn’t which vehicle would win, but which Toyota.
Martin Truex Jr. thought he was going to win the Daytona 500, only for Denny Hamlin to nip him at the start/finish line.
“When we came into the sport, we struggled”.
Even though NASCAR was growing out of its down home Southern roots there were many perceived prejudices against a “foreign company” invading a made-in-America sport.
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“As we were looking at why we should come into NASCAR, that was a big part of it, to have a shot at winning the Great American race, to be able to talk to the incredible, powerful fan base that NASCAR has”.
