Hamlin uses daring move to give Joe Gibbs a Daytona 500 win

He proved otherwise Sunday by winning his first Daytona 500 with a dramatic last-lap pass of teammate Matt Kenseth, then a door-to-door battle to the finish line with Martin Truex.

“This was our 10th try at the Daytona 500“, said David Wilson, president of Toyota Racing Development, who called the win the biggest in Toyota history — trumping even the 2003 Indianapolis 500 victory. So when Harvick tried to get his Chevrolet in the middle of it, Hamlin got in his way.

Gibbs won three Super Bowl titles as head coach of the Washington Redskins, and as team owner of Joe Gibbs Racing, he has overseen four Sprint Cup championships and now two Daytona 500 victories following Denny Hamlin’s win Sunday. Hamlin crossed the finish line just inches ahead of Truex Jr.

Prior to Saturday’s win, the driver of the No. 11 FedEx Toyota had raced in the Daytona 500 10 times, with his highest finish a second in 2014. If there was anything he would have done different, Truex said, “I wish I would have crowded (Hamlin) up the track a little bit more late down the front stretch – but those are split-second decisions”.

Last year’s race victor, Joey Logano, looked to become the first back-to-back victor in the Daytona 500 since Sterling Marlin in 1994 and 1995.

“You hate to end the race before you even got started”, Elliott said. Brad Keselowski had a competitive auto all day, as did their quasi-stablemate from Wood Brothers, rookie Ryan Blaney, who was far more impressive and competitive than his 19th-place finish showed.

“I have a feeling I’m going to have to see that same thing for a long time”.

Hamlin’s edged Martin Truex, Jr. by one one-hundredth of a second, or about four inches. “I would say about halfway through the race we just started going backwards”. “Once Denny jumped up, he just got such a huge boost from (Harvick)”.

WHO HAD A BAD RACE: One of the favorites to win, Dale Earmhardt Jr., wrecked on Lap 169.

“If I can’t win, I want my teammate to win”, Kenseth said. We were in the hunt and got close and made good adjustments on our cars, but we were never quite fast enough to win it.

“I’m fine though, I’m proud of what we did”. With that behind us, let’s get into the goal of this post, three things we learned during the Daytona 500.

“I knew it was really close”, he said.

When Hamlin’s dream finally came true on Sunday, his mother, Mary Lou Hamlin, tweeted out a photo of her son’s second-grade letter.

“It’s just the circumstances”, he told the assembled press, clearly overcome by the grandeur of the moment, “J.D. Live and learn. I think if I get in that position again, I’ll do it a little bit differently”.

“I didn’t know we had won”.

His biggest victory until now was in the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

Hamlin’s victory was the first for JGR in the Daytona 500 since Dale Jarrett in 1993, and it was the first for Toyota. “We went for it and came up short”. “This is the plate race, and now we go to Atlanta where we’ve got to run our new open stuff and see how we stack up”.

“I don’t think I DVR’d the daggone race at home”, he said, laughing.

Hamlin led the most and soon cycled back into the lead following pit stops after Biffle’s incident.