DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.— Of the 40 drivers who qualified for the 66th-running of the Daytona 500, 14 have been victorious on the 2.5-mile track.
Of those 14, however, just six of the competitors have won the Great American Race. Denny Hamlin tops all current drivers at Daytona with three Harley J. Earl trophies. He’s the only full-time entrant with multiple 500 wins.
Yet when asked whether there’s a favorite for Monday’s rain-delayed Daytona 500, the driver of the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota did not hesitate.
“There are none in this race,” Hamlin said. “There is no favorite in this race.”
Several of his peers disagree, singling out Hamlin as the best superspeedway racer of his generation. Martin Truex, Jr., the 2017 NASCAR Cup champion, admires his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate’s prowess at Daytona and Talladega.
“I think there are a lot of guys that are really, really good at it,” Truex said. “Denny is certainly near the top. It is nice to have him in our camp to help with our deal.
“He’s very helpful. He’s very knowledgeable to help our guys with our game plan and things, so I would say he’s probably right there at the top.”
Bubba Wallace has leaned on Hamlin’s expertise as well. Since 2021, Wallace has raced under the 23XI Racing banner for Hamlin and NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan. Wallace has finished second at Daytona twice since joining the 23XI fold, once in the Daytona 500 and once in the summer race.
What keys of the game has he gleaned from his boss over the last three years?
“Decision making. Confidence. Awareness,” Wallace said. “Have to make all the right decisions.
“We look at what he’s been able to do and the resume he’s built. Him and I actually work really well on speedways together. He’s really good at keeping the lead. I need to be better at keeping the lead with him. But we both make the right decisions to get up to the front, and when we’re there, we work together really well.”
Hamlin will compete in his 19th Daytona 500 on Monday. Wallace has just six starts in the Great American Race. The 30-year-old racer believes that half the battle is repetition and Hamlin has “a lot of laps.”
“If you had your top three restrictor plate racers, I’d go with Denny, (Ryan) Blaney, Joey (Logano),” Wallace said. “I’d put myself in top 10. I just need to finish these things and finish more towards the front.
“It’s been fun to build a resume, have great people behind me at 23XI, building great race cars. You have to have that. You have to have the natural instinct to make the right decisions, but also the equipment and people to back you up.”
When it comes to equipment, Toyota enjoyed a successful coming out party for the new Camry in the Daytona Duels. Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell swept the twin qualifiers on Thursday night and will line up on the second row for the 500 behind Logano and Michael McDowell, who posted the top speeds during time trials.
After finishing third in the second Duel, Hamlin will start from Row 4. On Friday, he was fastest in Happy Hour. It’s not lost on the 43-year-old veteran that the new body style of the Camry along with the addition of the Legacy Motor Club stable—Erik Jones, John Hunter Nemechek and seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, a two-time Daytona 500 winner—to the Toyota fold should benefit the manufacturer’s efforts in the 500. Hamlin hasn’t finished in the top 15 since NASCAR introduced the NextGen car.
“It’s an evolution you’ve got to continue to change because the Next Gen cars do draft so much differently than what we saw for the Gen 6 cars,” Hamlin said of the previous model NASCAR competed with from 2013 to 2021. “Obviously, you saw two-by-two racing. You’re going to see that for the bulk of (Monday) as well. It’s just these Next Gen cars have a lot of drag in them, which is why we qualify 20 miles an hour slower than we used to.
“So, with that, you’ve really got to stay in line for the bulk of the race. Once you establish whether you’re on the inside or the outside, there’s no real opportunities to make moves like you used to. So, you’ve got to just be patient and try to cycle up to the front through strategy or pick the right lane when a lane starts to bobble, right? It’s just different in that aspect, so it takes a little more patience for the Next Gen.”
While patience is necessary to reach the end game, Hamlin admits a driver also has to be aggressive and selfish to win.
“I feel like I started to continue pushing the limits of pushing throughout the on-track time,” Hamlin said. “Certainly, (Thursday) I really didn’t really lock on with anyone or push anyone for most of the race – there were a few instances. But (on) Friday and getting closer to (the race), I’m starting to push the limits of how far can I go, how hard can I push and how long can I push.
“I feel pretty good about my understanding of that now.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
