That’s the best way to visualize the winning margin for Denny Hamlin in the Daytona 500 Sunday afternoon.
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“Woo! How about that [bleep]”, Hamlin said as he strutted into the media center at Daytona International Speedway, knocking down a microphone for ecstatic emphasis. Hamlin beat Truex by one-hundredth of a second, the closest finish in the history of the race.
Truex Jr. took the lead momentarily and appeared to take the checkered flag.
Matt Kenseth was one lap away from his third Daytona 500 victory.
Kenseth’s crew chief, Jason Ratcliff, was surprised that the outside line – led by Hamlin and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick – made such headway on the last lap.
When he was in second grade, Denny Hamlin wrote a letter to himself wishing for a Daytona 500 victory.
Toyota dominated Speedweeks. Hamlin won the Daytona 500 on Sunday, eight days after winning the exhibition Sprint Unlimited.
Like I said, I am proud of our effort, excited to start the season this way. “We all see it and we all know he’s going to do a very good job”. “I have a feeling I’m going to have to see that same thing for a long time”. “It’s insane, it happened so fast”. You can not pump fake someone for a Daytona 500 victory.
“This is the pinnacle of my career for sure”.
After entering the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2007, Toyota won its first championship at NASCAR’s highest level previous year on the strength of Kyle Busch’s remarkable comeback from a racing accident that caused him to miss the first 11 races of the season. As Malcolm Butler claims a Super Bowl-winning interception, Ricardo Lockette grasps at air. “Never give up on your dreams”. Ive had two from an occupational standpoint.
The naked eye would have said the latter, but the replay showed something different and ended the frustration for one of NASCAR’s most established drivers. He entered the final lap in fourth place, but made a charge to the front, passing Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch.
As Hamlin and Truex delivered the photo finish, the guy who had his day pump-faked, Kenseth, joked he “was back in Turn 3”, finally coming across the line in 14th.
He added: “I knew it was close, but I didn’t know we had won”. I can’t even figure out what I did, but it all just came together.
I mean”, Hamlin said, “I just remember pulling up in front of the 4 (Harvick) and him giving me a push and not letting off when he was pushing and ultimately that was the push to the victory for us.
“I don’t think I DVR’d the daggone race at home”, he said, laughing. “I still felt like I had enough momentum to keep (Hamlin) behind me. I saw the pylon change and blink at the last second for the 11 (his auto number)”.
“It’s hard to make those decisions”. Edwards was fifth to give Toyota four of the top five spots.
“When we came into the sport, we struggled”. “We were not ready”. We all want to win. “It’s disappointing when they put you in a positon to win and you can’t get it done as a driver”.
Said the youthful pole victor, “I’m not sure, just got turned around there off of four”.
“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”. I think we’ll have a lot more opportunities to win races this year with race cars like that. You look at our day-that first big slide.
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Be Civil – It’s OK to have a difference in opinion but there’s no need to be a jerk. “I was having so much fun I hate that we’re standing here right now”.
