DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Denny Hamlin strolled into the Godwin Kelly Deadline Room at Daytona International Speedway on Friday and was introduced as a four-time Daytona 500 winner.
Well, not quite.
Hamlin has won the Daytona 500 three times, most recently in 2020 – the finish that saw Ryan Newman’s Ford flying through the air.
Hamlin is an excellent pick to win Sunday’s 64th Daytona 500. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has developed a knack for mastering the moment in NASCAR’s biggest race.
The winning driver of the Daytona 500 has to be selfish. That is why some of the risky moves in the closing laps of the race are borderline cutthroat.
“You have to be selfish obviously,” Hamlin said. “You can’t win if you’re content on just helping someone else.
“If I help someone else there are selfish reasons behind it. It might look like I’m trying to help someone – I’m trying to help myself. It’s just kind of the way it is.”
There is always a motive in the Daytona 500. A driver works with another driver to help both benefit and get to the front, but at the end, those two drivers will dump each other in a heartbeat.
Plus, there is the business angle that becomes a major part of the agenda.
“In this world of manufacturer alliances and all that stuff that has really been a prominent part of our racing, the bottom line is I’ve made a career at superspeedways the last 10 years just counting on other people being selfish,” Hamlin said. “Then, when the rubber hits the road at the end of the race, the guy in eighth place pushing seven of the same manufacturers in front of him eventually is going to get tired of waiting and know that his time has run out and he has to make a move and that’s typically when I capitalize.
“That’s typically how it’s worked in the past and drivers will always be selfish, especially at the end of the 500.”
It’s a matter of having the patience before running out of patience.
If it happens at the right time, it can help a driver make it to victory lane in NASCAR’s biggest race. If it comes at the wrong time, it can create motorsports mayhem.
So, how does a driver know when it’s time to go at the end of the Daytona 500?
“A lot of it is situational and the people that are up front and how many laps are to go,” Hamlin explained. “Gosh, there’s just a lot of different things.
“I do think things happen a little bit slower in this car. I know that’s hard to believe after the Duels with the late block. The runs are produced a little bit slower. You have to be methodical with how you produce that run and when you pull out you’ve got to figure out how am I going to clear because there’s just not as much momentum and energy built up as what we had.
“I can’t say that I have the answer to it because I don’t. I haven’t been in a situation where it’s been okay, I’ve been 10th place and I was still able to win inside five laps to go. Talladega last year – or a few years ago – we were 29th on the first green-white checkered and we won.
“There’s so much energy in the pack. Now this, I think this will be a little bit different. Just to caution everyone, the racing could look a little different from what we’ve had in the past. It doesn’t mean it that it won’t be a great race. I think we’ve seen last lap or second to last lap pass for both Duels so you can build some energy and get some exciting finishes. It just might look differently to get to that point.”
With the Next Gen car, there remains a lot of uncertainty entering Sunday’s Daytona 500. One thing remains consistent from previous generation of stock cars at Daytona and that is hanging onto the draft.
In Thursday night’s two Bluegreen Vacation Duel races, a five-car pack was able to pull away from the rest of the field. Once the cars outside of that group lost the draft, they weren’t able to recover and contend for the win.
“There are a lot of factors that goes into cars losing the draft,” Hamlin continued. “I tried my best. I lined up and did everything I was supposed to do. I was at the tail end – this is once I got lapped by the Toyotas because I was trying to push them forward and I couldn’t hang on. There’s nothing I could’ve done short of telling the person in front of me where to run on the race track to allow me to stay in there, but you can’t do it.
“These cars lose so much engine power behind others. It’s tough. It looks like four is the number. You can stay in the tail end of the four-car (draft), but once it gets to five the speeds kick up where that last car is really in trouble. I think that while we can say that the race can look like this or that or there’s only half the field. I do think a lot of the elements that you saw last night will happen on the Sunday where the field gets strung out pretty wide.”
Being introduced as a four-time Daytona 500 winner on Friday was certainly premature, but what would it take for Hamlin to reach that number of Daytona 500 wins?
“I think it’s just execution and just being strategic with your moves and how you manage the race,” he said. “Really, a lot of it is going to boil down to is just not making mistakes and if you do make mistakes make sure they’re early where you can recover because I think it will be a little bit difficult to recover if it happens late.”
