COLUMN: Scintillating Daytona 500 comes to the rescue of NASCAR's opening Speedweeks
Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.—The racing in Speedweeks 2019 was not an unqualified success, but the despite the sellout Daytona 500 made up for the perceived lack of excitement in the Clash, the Duels and the Xfinity Series race.
With each day leading up to the Great American Race, the energy, the crowds and the anticipation picked up significantly. By the time Sunday rolled around, the stage was set. Jim France delivered a heartfelt message to the competitors in the drivers' meeting two hours before the green flag.
And in front of a full house, the first packed grandstands in years despite the sellout notices, the best stock car racers in NASCAR delivered. No one left for the exits early despite a rash of late-race cautions. The fans were on their feet as the race went into overtime—and the at-home viewers increased by eight percent over last year’s race.
All the doom and gloom from detractors throughout the week was washed away in three hours and 45 minutes—or four hours if you count the post-race coverage which centered on race winner Denny Hamlin and the Joe Gibbs Racing Family reflecting on the recent loss of team co-founder J.D. Gibbs. In the post-race celebration, Coach Joe Gibbs invited the entire room to join the team at Steak-n-Shake in traditional Daytona 500 winning fashion.
Here are 10 other takeaways from nine days in Daytona:
- Chris Gabehart at the helm: In Hamlin’s 15 seasons with the team, he's had five different crew chiefs overseeing the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team. The four men before Gabehart—Mike Ford, Darian Grubb, Dave Rogers and Mike Wheeler, were all more than capable of getting the job done. But Gabehart’s take-charge attitude and similar short-track background seems to work well with Hamlin. While we’re only one race into the year, Gabehart set the tone for the remainder of the season. “Complacent is not in my vocabulary,” Gabehart said. “We're going to go win 35 more races, the way I look at it. People say you can't win every race, and I disagree. I show up every weekend to win, and I know Joe Gibbs expects that of us, I know Denny does, and I know my race team does. My intent is to win 35 more times, and we may fall short, but I'm going to Atlanta to get another one.”
- One Ford: I understand it’s every man for himself in the last laps of a race, but Michael McDowell would have had a better shot and a win or at least a podium finish had he hooked up with Joey Logano on the last lap. Even though Logano was riding wounded, the strength of the No. 22 Penske Ford was a better bet than McDowell being out on an island or trying to push Kyle Busch.
- The one that got away: Kyle Busch has 51 career Cup wins but is still missing the Harley J. Earl trophy. While Sunday night was Busch’s best bet to win the race, he was gracious in defeat. “At least we got a JGR car in Victory Lane,” Busch said. “That's the big picture. That's what matters, and we move on.” In other news, Busch will make his 500th Cup start at Atlanta.
- The new teammate: Matt DiBenedetto put on a remarkable show on Sunday, only to be collected in a melee not of his making. In his No. 95 team debut, DiBenedetto led a race-high 49 laps before finishing 28th. Kyle Busch said DiBenedetto’s performance didn’t surprise him. “Having Wheels (crew chief Mike Wheels) over there and having JGR equipment and stuff like that and being an affiliated team, I feel like they did a really good job, and Matt did a great job behind the wheel,” Busch said. “He was fast, he was smooth, he looked really good. Was just disappointed that he wasn't able to kind of be there at the end.”
- Preece survives with top 10: When the smoke cleared, there was Ryan Preece, driving through massive wrecks to safety not once but twice. For a rookie, he did a masterful job of staying out of trouble and bringing the No. 47 Kroger Chevry home to an eighth-place finish—his best result in six Cup starts.
- Triple threat: Kudos to Ross Chastain who also scored his first career top 10 in a Cup race on Sunday. In 37 previous starts, Chastain’s best finish was 18th. Chastain also competed in the Gander Outdoors Truck Series race on Friday and finished 18th. He finished 13th in Saturday’s Xfinity Series romp.
- First-time winners: Austin Hill and Michael Annett can now add their names to the list of winners in their respective series. Making his debut in the No. 16 Tundra for Hattori Racing, Hill, 24, brought the defending truck champions back to Victory Lane in the season opener. Hill’s win came in his 52nd career start. Annett, 32, was 0 for 229 prior to Saturday’s Xfinity Series win. All in all, two feel-good stories on the under card.
- When the dust settled—Ty Dillon led the Bow-tie brigade with a sixth-place finish. Dillon, 25, scored just one top-10 finish in 2018—a sixth-place result in the July Daytona race. He’s already ahead of the game.
- Logano pays respects: Certainly, Hamlin expressed his gratitude to J.D. Gibbs, but Logano was also quick to reflect on his former boss and friend. “ 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,” Logano 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. I do think that's cool. I can at least remove myself enough to look at that and say that's a really cool story for you guys to write about."
- The lackluster Clash and Duels: Short fields at night don’t produce entertaining races at Daytona. The Clash may have outlived its usefulness. As for the Duels, move the races back to daytime when the track is hot and slick. There was a time when the races previously known as the Twins whetted the appetite for a weekend of racing. That’s not the case any more, due to smaller fields and single-file racing born of a desire to protect primary cars.
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