After a week of self-admitted fearmongering, the 2019 Daytona 500 was everything we have come to expect from the Great American Race.
There was thrilling three-wide pack racing throughout the field, a handful of underdog upset bids, the requisite 'Big One' and an edge-of-your-seat finish. Hell, there were even some strategy elements you would never have expected from restrictor plate racing.
In short, after a week of single-file parades throughout the Clash, Duel and Xfinity Series race, the Daytona 500 was a return to form for what Daytona Speedweeks has transformed into over the past 30 years.
It was fun.
The final 15 laps was an expensive, cluster-you-know-what, but it was a lot of fun, even if for the wrong reasons.
And even if you're not a Denny Hamlin fan, there is much to appreciate about Joe Gibbs Racing and the No. 11 winning the biggest race of the year just three weeks after the passing of J.D. Gibbs — Joe's eldest son and the intended heir of his motorsports empire.
Everyone loved J.D., and there is a tremendous amount of respect for Hamlin, crew chief Chris Gabehart and spotter Chris Lambert, a trio of blue collar racers who parked their Toyota in victory lane at the conclusion of a great way to start to the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup season.
There is much to unpack from Sunday night, and the first 'What We Learned' of the season can be found below.
"This one is for J.D." pic.twitter.com/r5iYk4yfvi
"This one is for J.D."
It would be remiss of me not to start this column by reflecting upon just how fitting it was that the No. 11 found victory lane on Sunday.
J.D. Gibbs passed away on January 21, and it was a great loss to both their organization, and to the sport at large. But it was especially a loss to Hamlin, who was discovered in Late Model Stocks by Gibbs and ran his No. 11 as tribute.
Hamlin has occasionally used a modified signature above his door that read 'J.D. Hamlin,' due in equal parts to Gibbs' legacy and his own name, 'James Dennis.'
"This one is for J.D.," Hamlin said upon climbing out of the car, after pointing to the sticker on the A-Post.
Coach Gibbs even said he felt like there was a degree of destiny at hand, as the race legitimately began under a cloud that read 'JD' and ended with 'JD Hamlin' and the No. 11 team leading a 1-2-3 finish for the organization.
"It's the most emotional and the biggest win I've ever had in my life in anything," three-time Super Bowl winning Gibbs said after the race. "J.D. built our race team, was the guy that ran day-to-day operations for 27 years. He invested his occupational life in our race team.
"And as a part of that, he went up to purchase some Late Model stuff from Denny and struck up a relationship with Denny, put him in a test, put him in a truck, put him in an Xfinity car at Darlington, and finally he said, We need to sign this guy… I guess everybody could say, well, it just kind of happened. I don't believe that just happened. I honestly believe it was … I think the Lord looked down on us."
And look, it's more than understandable if you don't want to buy into the mysticism of how Sunday night happened to play out for the Gibbs team, but even 100 percent in a purely sporting vacuum, it was a special moment.
Sometimes, motivation is a powerful thing. Other times, things just have a way of working out.
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We took this photo and posted it yesterday before the race. Today we noticed the shape of the clouds (circled). Make of it what you will. #DoItForJD #Daytona500
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Not what we expected
For the better part of a week, the entire NASCAR community was transfixed on this narrative that the Daytona 500 would follow the example initated by the Clash, Duel and Xfinity race and become single-file, follow-the-leader bore festivals.
I admit that I played a role in that with my coverage.
But when driver-after-driver tells you throughout the week that they can't pass with these cars, and that the safest and fastest way around the track is up against the wall, the narrative is eventually hardwired.
Fortunately, there was a smaller group of drivers and analysts that insisted that the combination of warmer weather, double the number of Cup cars and the incentive of the Harley J. Earl trophy would be enough to give us the Daytona 500 we've come to expect.
As if that wasn't enough, NASCAR chairman Jim France told he drivers to join Hamlin and Chase Elliott, drivers who attempted to mix it up all week, and "make a show of it." From the CEO's mount to everyone's ears.
The first two-thirds of the Great American Race was captivating television. It was certainly fun to watch from my perch in the UNOH Fan Zone.
"That's probably what it was, instead of a 20-car field, you've got 40 cars, and 30 of them really racing," Joey Logano said after the race. "Seemed like there was times that you had enough cars down there that the bottom was stronger for a while, and I thought that was fun kind of working the lanes back and forth, and tires will start wearing out and cars were wiggling around the racetrack and then the top would start to prevail again.
"It was a much different race than what we were expecting. I was expecting us all to be up against the wall, and quickly found out pretty early in the race that this was going to go a lot different than what we thought it was going to."
Thank God, Jim France, or whoever for that, because this was a terrible Speedweeks until the main event redeemed it.
Kyle Busch agreed.
"I thought the two-wide, sometimes the wide-three action, sometimes the mixing it up guys would get loose and get shuffled out, was pretty intense there a few times, and I wouldn't say that much needs to be done," Busch said. "Maybe we just don't need to have races with 20 cars on the track, we need 40."
And that leads me to my only gripe of the week — something still needs to be done to cure the Clash and Duel.
The preliminary events serve as an advertising product, of sorts, for the Daytona 500. It's a series of live commercials that provide hype for the reason we're all there in the first place. But based on Sunday, the drivers could pass all along if they had enough incentive and enough cars to make it an exciting show.
So, I stand by something I wrote after the Duel on Thursday:
If the final laps of the Daytona 500 are the only incentive worth racing for, what are we spending an entire week here for? Like most who grew up in the racing community, I enjoyed the Busch Clash and Gatorade Twin 125s.
Speedweeks was the first taste of racing we received during the closing stages of a too-long winter.
The Bud Shootout, as it was called back then, was oftentimes the most exciting show of the week, due in part to drivers making daring moves in a winner-take-all exhibition environment. There was nothing to lose and drivers raced accordingly.
Before NASCAR protected the starting spots of teams with the advent of the top-35 rule, and later, the charter system, the qualifying races featured real stakes — especially when more than 42 cars attempted a race that starts 40. What's the point of the Duel as it is currently constructed?
This year, The Clash and The Duel felt like a pair of pointless preludes to something else that mattered more.
It may be prudent to take another year of the status quo in 2020 to see how these two races play out, as to not make a knee-jerk decision, but it may be time to rethink these two events. Could NASCAR take a page out of the IndyCar playbook, ditch the Clash and run an infield road course points race before the Daytona 500? How about scrapping single-car qualifying, draw positions at random for a pair of shorter qualifying races, and let those serve as the field-setters instead?
Just spitballing here, but the entire Speedweeks package was missing something, even if the Daytona 500 ultimately proved to be worth it.
The Love-Hate relationship with plate racing
This was the end of an era, kind of, regarding restrictor plates at Daytona and Talladega.
Moving forward, NASCAR will implement the same tapered spacer they currently use to restrict horsepower at all other tracks to replicate a restrictor plate at the two superspeedways in Alabama and Florida. For better or worse, it shouldn't create a drastic change from what we've known for much of the past three decades.
In a way, the best things about this kind of package is also the worst.
Forcing every team within the same horsepower bracket, and having every driver wide open on the throttle generates a tremendous amount of parity. Consider the names who contended for the win on Sunday: Michael McDowell (Front Row), Ryan Preece (JTG-Daugherty), Ty Dillon (Germain) and Matt DiBenedetto (Leavine Family Racing) — the latter of which led the most of laps on Sunday.
Seriously!
These four point races occasionally generate upsets like David Ragan, Trevor Bayne, Michael Waltrip and Ward Burton in recent memory.
That's really cool and provides an 'American Dream' element to 'The Great American Race.' It's fitting, honestly.
On the other hand, it encourages the sort of 15-to-20 car melees that we saw in both the Clash and the Daytona 500. It's just frustrating to see hundreds of thousands of dollars go into each race car, just to willingly destroy 30 of them each time out.
It's a challenging dichtomy to fully embrace, especially when you appreciate the pros and are uneasy about the cons — especially when teams are struggling to stay afloat in these difficult financial times.
But again, it was dang cool to see DiBenedetto, Dillon, McDowell and Preece contend for the win at various points on Sunday night. And it was even better that no one got hurt in the two big crashes that delayed the conclusion of the event.
Kudos to NASCAR's various safety initiatives.
Final Lap
With a second Daytona 500 victory, Denny Hamlin is now the most successful active driver without a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship. Depending on how the remainder of his career plays out, he might become the best all-time without a title. He has 32 victories in 15 seasons. Mark Martin, widely regarded as one of the best, had 40 wins, no champonship and no Daytona 500. Look for Joe Gibbs Racing to push hard to get Hamlin a championship here in the near future.
I understand Joey Logano's frustration with Michael McDowell. I certainly would have expected a Ford to push another Ford, but it's likely a moot point. McDowell didn't seem to have the horsepower or speed to push the contending cars forward. He didn't catch Busch to give him the shove he thought he could provide, and he wouldn't have offered Logano a shove to the front either.
Ryan Preece shrugged off compliments that his two daring maneuvers to avoid the big multi-car crashes were a big deal, but they really were. He told me before the race that he views Daytona and Talladega as a less grip-limited version of what he had done for years in a Tour Modified at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He had more grip in a Cup car on Sunday and expertly navigated around the crashes, using skills he picked up at Loudon. Pretty cool.
Thank you to NASCAR for recognizing Sam Bass alongside J.D. Gibbs and Glen Wood during the drivers meeting on Sunday. The former officially-licensed NASCAR artist was just as responsible for popularizing certain elements of the sport as the drivers, owners media were in the 1990s. Between trophy-guitars, program covers, Wheaties boxes and paint schemes driven by Jeff Gordon, and Dale Earnhardt, it was hard-pressed to be a fan of the sport and not come across something his figurative DNA was built-into. Near the end of his wonderful life, Sam sometimes felt like those who currently run the sport had forgotten what he had put into it, and I just hope that moving forward, much is done to preserve his legacy. It's my hope that a band of drivers, track operators and NASCAR itself acts to acquire his content and keep it available because it is as timeless as Sam was.
Sam Bass is a NASCAR Hall of Famer and that's a sentiment you're going to hear from me for a long time.
I'm deeply saddened by the passing of @SamBassArtist. He was one of my first real friends when I started regularly covering the sport. I thought it was so cool THE Sam Bass knew my name.
I've had the opportunity to write many stories about Sam and his work, too. So grateful. pic.twitter.com/XQ0pmxh0Ax
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