(Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography)
By Aaron Bearden

Post-race review and analysis from the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series opener at Daytona International Speedway. 

*Writer not present at the track this week. Observations are from afar.

Who Won? 

Denny Hamlin. The veteran survived the late carnage and held on in a late battle for his second Daytona 500 win.

Who Claimed the Stages?

Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney.

Full Race Results

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A Win for J.D. Gibbs

Denny Hamlin pulled into victory lane as a two-time winner of the Great American Race on Sunday, having erased a winless streak that dated back to 2017 in the process. Teammates Kyle Busch and Erik Jones followed, capping off a memorable 1-2-3 result for Joe Gibbs Racing.

The moment was special for each of them.

But to team owner Joe Gibbs, the victory meant so much more.

Sunday’s Daytona 500 was the first for Gibbs since the loss of his son, J.D. Gibbs, in January. The NASCAR community honored Gibbs throughout Speedweeks. There were stickers of his name on cars and Lap 11 of the race was observed as a moment of remembrance for Gibbs, much like was done for Dale Earnhardt on Lap 3 of races after his passing in 2001.

The groundwork was laid for an emotional scene in victory lane if any JGR car could pull off the victory. The fact that it was Hamlin — a driver picked by J.D. when he was in late models — made for a storybook ending that felt fateful to Joe Gibbs after the race.

“It’s the most emotional and the biggest win I’ve ever had in my life in anything,” Gibbs said. “J.D. built our race team, was the guy that ran day-to-day operations for 27 years.  He invested his occupational life in our race team.

“And as a part of that, he went up to purchase some late model stuff from Denny and struck up a relationship with Denny, put him in a test, put him in a truck, put him in an Xfinity car at Darlington, and finally he said, We need to sign this guy.” 

Hamlin was humbled after hearing his boss describe the significance of Sunday’s win.

“(Joe’s) an NFL Hall of Famer, Super Bowl champion, and saying that this is the biggest win of his career is just special, and it’s just special for me to be able to deliver that to him in a special way,” Hamlin said. “I know he would have been happy with any one of his cars going out there and getting a victory, but obviously one with his son’s name on the door and number is probably a little more special.”

Opportunities for storybook-like endings pop up occasionally in NASCAR, but rarely do circumstances pan out as beautifully as they did for Hamlin and JGR in Daytona. The closest parallel in recent history is Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson’s win at Atlanta Motor Speedway after the company’s fatal 2004 plane crash.

That Hamlin was able to win, and teammates Busch and Jones followed to give JGR the second 1-2-3 run for any team in the Daytona 500, was a perfect storm of circumstances that will make Sunday’s race one to remember for years to come.

Even fourth-place finisher Logano was happy for his former team.

“I’m not a Gibbs driver, but for what J.D. has done for my career is the reason why I’m sitting here today,” he said. “As bad as I want to win it, it is pretty cool to think that the first race after his passing, to see those guys one, two, three, it just says he’s up there watching and maybe gave you guys a little extra boost there at the end.  Congratulations to them.”

Much Talk About Restarts

The disappointment of Sunday’s close call stung for Busch in the aftermath of the event.

In his 14-year Cup career, the Nevadan has accomplished nearly everything in NASCAR. But much like Tony Stewart before him, Busch has been unable to add his name to the Harley J. Earl Trophy.

He had an opportunity to accomplish the feat down the stretch on Sunday, trading the lead with Hamlin over a slew of late restarts. But in the final two-lap shootout Busch elected to let Hamlin pull ahead of him on the outside lane and shift down.

It was a selfless move, and one that helped bring JGR the organization’s third win in Daytona Beach. But it also might have cost Busch his first Daytona 500 win.

And he made the decision after Hamlin chose the opposite on the previous restart.

“It’s first and foremost to try to make sure that we at least get a JGR car to Victory Lane,” Busch said. “They didn’t want to do it the previous restart, but then since he got the lead, he wanted to do it again.

“You know, it is what it is.  Just at least we got a JGR car in Victory Lane.  That’s the big picture.  That’s what matters, and we move on.” 

Hamlin later explained why he chose otherwise when presented the same opportunity as Busch on the previous restart.

“I’m not sure if it was a green-white-checkered or not, but it was inside 5 to go, and I thought that any deals and stuff like that — our original deal was inside 10 to go,” he said. “After that you kind of race.”

The Virginian also believed Busch made the correct call in giving him the lead on the final restart.

“I think that he probably knew the same thing that I did, that that bottom lane deteriorates really quick at the end of these races,’ Hamlin said. “I’ve been on the bottom lane three or four times here on a green-white-checkered and lost the race every time because it was just not the place to be, so I thought that he was actually pretty smart in thinking that, hey, if I drop down in front of him, that puts him in the position to go on the offense against him.

“If he’s on the inside of me and I’m right there on his door, there’s no offensive play that he can make.  He was actually — he did — made the right move in my opinion to let us do that so he can have the 22 and make a run.” 

Carnage

Entering Sunday’s Great American Race, NASCAR fans, teams and personnel were still in search of an ideal race from Speedweeks.

Friday’s Gander Outdoors Truck Series race was a crash-filled calamity. But Saturday’s Xfinity Series opener proved to be a tame affair with a single-file train on the high lane – prompting Jim France to jokingly say “I hope a few of you drivers will get down on the bottom with Denny (Hamlin) and Chase (Elliott) and make a show today.”

The NASCAR faithful were hopeful that Sunday’s 500-miler would find a happy medium between the previous two day’s shows. They wanted a toned-down version of Friday’s aggression, with the high number of contenders from Saturday’s run.

For 400 miles they had just that.

Then all hell broke loose.

The drama began during the final round of pit stops, when a mistake from Rick Ware Racing teammates B.J. McLeod and Cody Shane Ware led them to crash coming to the pit lane. The pair’s speed carried the crash into the drivers ahead of them coming to pit road – Jimmie Johnson, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Tyler Reddick.

Ware took blame for the incident on social media after the race.

Additional cautions flew on Lap 175, 182 and 188 for debris and a pair of single-car incidents involving Kyle Larson and Brad Keselowski. The incidents gave the run to the finish a feeling of disarray. Cars continually bunched up only to slow back down for another yellow, the intensity and tension ramping up each time along the way.

Heading into the final 10 laps, the majority of the 40-car field remained on track. But a sense of ever-increasing desperation permeated through the field,  and moves on track became increasingly bold and optimistic.

The chaos reached its climax on Lap 192, when contact between Paul Menard and Matt DiBenedetto set off a massive crash that devoured the majority of the field.

In the span of 10 seconds, the lead pack of race cars erupted into a cacophony of screeching brakes, wall hits and bent sheet metal. Sparks erupted from the heart of the crash, as the low ride height of the plate package left crashing machines grinding their undercarriages against the racing surface.

Just under a dozen teams were eliminated in the bedlam, their Daytona dreams gone in an instant as the sobering reality of plate race risk set in.

For those that remained, the carnage was far from over. Contact on Lap 196 led to another sizable crash that took out 2007 Daytona 500 winner Kevin Harvick and damaged others including Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman.

The field got back underway a few laps later after a red flag to attempt a green-white-checkered finish in regulation, but a mistake from Clint Bowyer set off another eight-car accident that took out or damaged the majority of the remaining field. The crash forced NASCAR Overtime on the field, with just 14 cars — most of them damaged — to contest for positions on the lead lap.

There were no further issues in overtime. A good, clean race to the finish gave a proper sendoff to the event, with Hamlin leading the remnants of the initial 40-car pack across the start-finish line to bring a merciful end to the racet.

But one look at the remaining cars told the story of the final 100 miles. Hamlin and Busch’s Toyotas were clean after running ahead of the field during the mayhem, but many of the other top-10 finishers climbed out of machines that looked more akin to a short track than an aero-dependent super speedway.

NASCAR’s drivers are considered to be among the best in the world. Yet they were barely able to bring a dozen cars to the checkered flag in the sport’s biggest race?

Why?

“Brains come unglued,” Busch said afterward. “That’s all it is.  Everybody just — the brain connection from right up here to the gas pedal foot doesn’t quite work the same anymore.

“There’s a lot of give and take and a lot of guys that play the game and race the race throughout the beginning portion of the races, and then it comes down to the end, and somehow some way there’s always that caution within 30 or 40 to go that sets everybody off pit road and then it’s chaos after that.”

After helping to cause a wreck himself, Bowyer explained how the allure of a win in the sport’s biggest race can make drivers attempt moves they normally wouldn’t.

“Hey, it is the Daytona 500, I had to go for it,” Bowyer said.

“We had a shot at it and I took it,” he later continued. “I had a big run on the (No.) 34 and knew that I had to make quick work of him because in the mirror they were going three-wide and losing their minds so you knew that was going to come down on ya. So I decided to lose my mind too.”

Speedweeks Savior, Plate Sendoff

The ending of the Daytona 500 was a shame for so many involved, because the racing that preceded it showcased everything that can be great about restrictor plate racing.

In the final planned run for restrictor plates and the “old” superspeedway rules package, the Cup Series field put on a nostalgic showcase of plate race prowess that served as a reminder of just how entertaining it can be. There were ebbs and flows between two, and sometimes three, lanes. Strategies varied, and nearly everyone in the field spent some time toward the front of the pack.

After a week of subpar races that skewed the perception of this year’s Speedweeks negative entering the day, Sunday’s Daytona 500 was a thriller that threw aside all preconceived notions of single-file boredom in the early laps.

Fourth-place finisher Joey Logano attempted to explain why Sunday’s field excelled where early races faltered.

“instead of a 20-car field, you’ve got 40 cars, and 30 of them really racing,” he said. “Seemed like there was times that you had enough cars down there that the bottom was stronger for a while, and I thought that was fun kind of working the lanes back and forth, and tires will start wearing out and cars were wiggling around the racetrack and then the top would start to prevail again.

“It was a lot different race than what we were all expecting.  I was expecting us all to be up against the wall, and quickly found out pretty early in the race that this was going to go a lot different than what we thought it was going to.” 

The exciting event served as the end of an era for restrictor plate racing. When NASCAR heads to Talladega Superspeedway in April, the sport will implement the same tapered spacer planned for use at other tracks this season to restrict horsepower and create similar drafting conditions to the restrictor plate era being abandoned.

How that product will shake out remains to be seen. It’s expected to provide similar competition on at Daytona and Talladega, but it could also inspire unique racing conditions that fundamentally alter the racing like the tandem draft package did in the late 2000s. NASCAR held the first of a two-day tire test at Daytona today that should give them a loose idea of what to expect.

But regardless of how the new era pans out, the opening 400 miles of Sunday’s Daytona 500 served as a fitting end to an era of racing that defined the sport’s biggest races and stars for decades.

Other Notes

  • Matt DiBenedetto didn’t get the end result he wanted, but he was arguably the breakout star of the day with his impressive debut with Leavine Family Racing. The Californian led a race-high 49 laps in Sunday’s Great American Race, a new record for the No. 95 in any Cup Series event. “This was the most amazing and heartbreaking all in the same day,” he said. “Unbelievable how fast my car was. I’ve never had a piece under me like that, so that’s amazing.”
  • Michael McDowell came under scrutiny from both Busch and Logano after he failed to push either driver past Hamlin in the final run to the checkered flag. He would have been expected to push Logano, but defended his decision not to. “I would have loved to work with Joey, but he was moving left to right,” he said. “The 18 had a big run, a lot of momentum and Joey had a lot of damage. The back of his car was completely smashed, no rear bumper, a parachute hanging out of it. Joey wasn’t gonna win the race. I wanted to put myself in the best spot to win the race and the Fords weren’t that friendly to me this weekend.”
  • On the opposite end of the spectrum, Whelen Modified Tour veteran Ryan Preece survived for a good finish to begin his rookie Cup season in Sunday’s Great American Race. He expertly (and perhaps luckily) dodged the two biggest crashes and found himself third coming to the white flag. Preece was committed to pushing Joey Logano, and ultimately found himself shuffled out on the final lap before finishing a bittersweet eighth. “I was so committed to pushing Joey [Logano], I focused more on him than I did some of the runs I probably should have focused on” he admitted afterward.
  • For the second-straight day, a three-wide battle played out coming to the green flag after confusion over the restart order. But unlike Noah Gragson’s incident on Saturday, Chase Elliott wasn’t penalized on Sunday. NASCAR claimed the following: “Chase Elliott was pushed three wide and was unable to reset his position. He did not illegally change lanes prior to the start-finish line. That is why we did not rule it as a restart violation.”
  • Gragson still wasn’t enthused, though..
  • Kyle Busch claimed the key to Sunday’s success was having all 40 cars on-track. There was also a thinly-veiled hint at something Kevin Harvick discussed early last week – that the small-field races earlier in Speedweeks may no longer be necessary or conducive to good racing in the modern era. “Maybe we just don’t need to have races with 20 cars on the track,” he said. “We need 40.”
  • Sunday’s race was the end of the road for two prominent NASCAR figures. Jamie McMurray made what is expected to be his final start in the event, overcoming an early crash to lead laps with a damaged No. 40 machine. The 2010 Daytona 500 champ issued a message of thanks to team owner Chip Ganassi on Monday.
  • Race director David Hoots also reached the end of an era, calling his last race in the Daytona 500. Here were his final words before signing out. (H/t to NASCAR on Reddit for this one)
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