DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. — For, oh, about three laps of Sunday’s Daytona 500, there was a feel of great down-home comfort and familiarity. An Elliott and an Earnhardt were in the lead. Was this 2016 or 1996?
But come 196 laps later, the modern era of stock car racing gone global was the inescapable theme of the Great American Race.
A fleet of Toyotas, once a mocked brand in this sport born of bootleggers in their modified Detroit-issue VEE-hickles, battled for the checkered flag. The only question was whether all the representatives of the brand that had never won the Daytona 500 would take out each other on the last turn and allow someone else to emerge champion from the wreckage.
Denny Hamlin’s bold move held up, though, and racing side-by-side with Martin Truex Jr. to the end, Hamlin crossed the finish line 1/100th of a second in front. It was the closest ever finish to this race, at least since they’ve been able to scientifically break down time to its atomic level.
It was the biggest victory of Hamlin’s 11-year career, one that contained 26 other wins more lower case in nature. And it was the second Daytona 500 victory for his car owner, Joe Gibbs, after a 23-year dry spell.
And, yes, it was the first time that Japanese-based outfit cracked victory lane in this sport’s semi-Super Bowl of a race. In all Toyota claimed four of the top five places.
Many of your more noted stock car brands — both human and mechanical — had run afoul of aerodynamics Sunday.
Pole-sitter Chase Elliott, the precocious rookie, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., the presumptive favorite to win the 500 on the 15th anniversary of his father’s death in this race, both cracked up separately after fish-tailing on Turn Four.
Last year’s Daytona 500 champion Joey Logano struggled early with his car, and out-numbered at the end, came in fifth. Jimmie Johnson, the six-time Sprint Cup champion who defends his Folds of Honor/QuickTrip 500 title at Atlanta Motor Speedway next week, was a distant 16th.
Sunday’s drama instead centered on how the leaders would sort out their loyalties to their teammates and their manufacturer. It was a little dicey there at the end.
Roaring around the final turn, Hamlin, running off the lead jumped out of line. Matt Kenseth (yes, in a Toyota) tried to go up high to block him, but Hamlin put his car uncomfortably between him and Truex (in another Toyota). All the rest of this race was a testament to teamwork, but now it was every driver for himself.
“When I saw (Hamlin) go inside the 20 car (Kenseth), I was thinking the worst — we’re going to take out both our cars,” Gibbs said.
But Hamlin held his line through the close contact and zeroed in on Truex. So close were the two at the finish that neither could be quite certain of the result until they received word from outside sources.
“I’m still trying to figure it all out, honestly,” Hamlin said two hours after the wild finish.
All Truex could do was to marinate in the peculiar agony of such a close defeat. And maybe beat himself up just a little for his end-of-game tactics. “Wish I would have crowded (Hamlin) up the track a little bit more down the frontstretch. Those are split-second decisions. He came out on the right end of it today,” he said.
For the 35-year-old Hamlin, Sunday was a crowning moment of an accomplished career, but one short on the big exclamation point. “You don’t like to be the guy that wins races but not the big ones,” he said.
Whatever the origin of the car, winning this race remains very much an American dream.
Shortly after his victory, Hamlin’s mother, Mary Lou Hamlin, Tweeted out a copy of a paper her son wrote many years ago as a Virginia schoolboy. It read, in part (and in very impressive cursive, by the way, for a second-grader): “My wish is to win the Daytona 500. If I win the Daytona 500 I would like it to come true on Feb. 17, 1998. My car would be red, white and blue, just like Bill Elliott’s car.”
“We missed it on a few details,” Hamlin said, nonetheless happy with the timing and color scheme and the international implications of a thoroughly 2016 victory.
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