{"id":2732,"date":"2016-02-23T09:01:16","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T17:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/hamlin-felt-for-kenseth-after-snatching-daytona-500\/"},"modified":"2016-02-23T09:01:16","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T17:01:16","slug":"hamlin-felt-for-kenseth-after-snatching-daytona-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/hamlin-felt-for-kenseth-after-snatching-daytona-500\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamlin felt for Kenseth after snatching Daytona 500"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. <\/strong>\u2014 Four drivers went into the Daytona 500 determined to end Joe Gibbs\u2019 23-year losing skid in NASCAR\u2019s biggest race of the year.<\/p>\n

So when Matt Kenseth took the white flag, Denny Hamlin was determined to help his teammate get to victory lane. Only the move he made to defend for Kenseth led to Hamlin winning the closest Daytona 500 in history.<\/p>\n

His decision to jump out of line to block a charge from Kevin Harvick instead led Harvick to push Hamlin enough to catch Kenseth. He staved off Kenseth\u2019s attempt to block, then wedged in between Kenseth and Martin Truex Jr. and beat Truex to the checkered flag by 0.010 seconds.<\/p>\n

Even as he celebrated his first Daytona 500 victory, Hamlin felt for his teammate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a great moment for me, but I feel awful for Matt because he\u2019s such a great friend, such a great teammate,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cI\u2019m just so proud of all my other teammates for us being so committed to each other for 500 miles. That was very rare that you see the selflessness that you saw, even with two laps to go. All of us were committed to pushing (Kenseth) to a victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw (Harvick) coming. I said, \u2018If I didn\u2019t make a run, he was going to make a run just like I did.\u2019 I went up there to block, he hit me so hard it shot me three cars forward. It\u2019s crazy, it happened so fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

The victory ended Gibbs\u2019 23-year drought at the Daytona 500. It gave Hamlin his first Daytona 500 victory in 10 tries, and Toyota its first in \u201cThe Great American Race.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the pinnacle of my career, for sure,\u201d said Hamlin.<\/p>\n

Gibbs, who in November celebrated with Kyle Busch the team\u2019s first Sprint Cup title in a decade, won the race for the first time since Dale Jarrett in 1993.<\/p>\n

Gibbs had made it clear that he had no use for the victories his drivers collected in the exhibition races leading into Sunday\u2019s season-opener \u2014 Hamlin and Busch each won one race in the buildup to the opener. But the three-time Super Bowl-winning coach was focused only on the 500 and his four drivers brainstormed on the best way to get a win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thrill in football, you can\u2019t get any more excited than that, winning a Super Bowl. It\u2019s the same thrill over here,\u201d Gibbs said. \u201cMost people never get to have a dream in life. I\u2019ve had two from an occupational standpoint. I\u2019m probably one of the most blessed guys in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin, Kenseth, Busch and Carl Edwards stuck close together for most of the race, and they got assistance from Truex, who became a de facto JGR teammate this year when Furniture Row Racing moved to Toyota.<\/p>\n

Kenseth led Truex until the final lap when Hamlin finally jumped out of line. Starting a second line on the outside, Hamlin got a push from Kevin Harvick that allowed him to catch Kenseth. Kenseth tried to throw a block but Hamlin wedged into the middle between Kenseth and Truex, and Kenseth had to save his car from wrecking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last thing I wanted to do was wreck off turn four with my Toyota teammates and none of us win,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cWe had talked about a plan overnight to just work together, work together and I\u2019ve never seen it executed so flawlessly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said with two to go that we have to get the team victory no matter what it takes and I essentially was trying to go up there and block (Harvick) to keep him from getting to those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Truex wasn\u2019t sure what he could have done differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hurts a little bit,\u201d Truex said. \u201cI think the only thing I should have done different was been a little more aggressive coming to the line, holding Denny up the race track. That last split second when he pulled off my door, that was it. It gave him that couple inches to beat me to the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to make those decisions. Live and learn. I think if I get in that position again, I\u2019ll do it a little bit differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toyotas swept the podium as Truex was second, and Busch third. Edwards was fifth to give Toyota four of the top five spots. It comes three months after Busch gave Toyota its first championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was our 10th try at the Daytona 500,\u201d said David Wilson, president of Toyota Racing Development, who called the win the biggest in Toyota history \u2014 trumping even the 2003 Indianapolis 500 victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we came into the sport, we struggled. We were not ready. We didn\u2019t know. And so it\u2019s taken time for us to collectively build an organization of winning races and competing for championships.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kenseth faded to 14th.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t get much more crushing than that,\u201d Kenseth said. \u201cIf I can\u2019t win, I want my teammate to win. There\u2019s a million things you could do differently, but I did what I thought I should do at the time to try to win. We finished terrible, but that was the move I thought I had to make to try to preserve the win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2014 Four drivers went into the Daytona 500 determined to end Joe Gibbs\u2019 23-year losing skid in NASCAR\u2019s biggest race of the year. So when Matt Kenseth took the white flag, Denny Hamlin was determined to help his teammate get to victory lane. Only the move he made to defend for Kenseth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2732"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}