DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Denny Hamlin came to the Daytona 500 determined to honor his late car owner with a victory.
He delivered with a storybook tribute for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Hamlin won NASCAR's biggest race for the second time in four years Sunday, leading JGR in a 1-2-3 sweep of the podium in overtime. The race and the season have been dedicated to J.D. Gibbs, Joe Gibbs' eldest son who died last month after battling a degenerative neurological disease.
J.D. Gibbs helped his father start the race team, ran it while Joe Gibbs was coaching the Washington Redskins, was a tire changer on the team's first Daytona 500 victory and the one who discovered Hamlin during a test session at Hickory Motor Speedway in North Carolina. Hamlin was hired to drive the No. 11 — the number J.D. Gibbs used when he played football — and J.D. Gibbs' name is on the Toyota.
"The whole family, they did so much for me over the course of my career, and this one is for J.D," Hamlin said.
Hamlin was met in victory lane by the entire Gibbs family, including J.D.'s widow and four sons.
Joe Gibbs, the Hall of Fame NFL coach with three Super Bowl victories, called Sunday's victory "the most emotional and biggest win I've ever had in my life, in anything."
Kyle Busch and Erik Jones finished second and third as JGR became the second team in NASCAR history to sweep the Daytona 500 podium. Hendrick Motorsports did it in 1997 with Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte and Ricky Craven.
An accident on pit road, a 21-car crash, 12 cautions and five wrecks livened the final 20 laps of regulation. The race was stopped twice for cleanup totaling nearly 40 minutes in the final stretch. During the second red-flag stop, one of NASCAR's track-drying trucks broke down while cleaning oil off the racing surface.
Hamlin and Busch alternated as the leaders during the handful of late restarts, and the final rush to the checkered flag was a push to hold off Ford driver and reigning NASCAR champion Joey Logano. The Ford camp went 1-2-3 in both of Thursday's qualifying races and was favored to win the Daytona 500.
Logano, who started his career at JGR, settled for fourth.
"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 [those] guys a little extra boost there at the end."
Michael McDowell was fifth in a Ford but aggravated Logano by not working with him in the two-lap overtime sprint to the finish.
Ty Dillon was sixth in the highest-finishing Chevrolet.
Eight drivers made their Daytona 500 debuts, and rookie Ryan Preece, a short-track racer from New England, was best in class with an eighth-place finish. Ross Chastain, the eighth-generation watermelon farmer who lost his main ride for this year when the FBI raided his sponsor right before Christmas, was 10th.
Jamie McMurray, the 2010 winner, was in the mix until he was collected in one of the late wrecks. He finished 22nd in his final race before retirement.
Alex Bowman and William Byron, the youngest front row in race history, finished 11th and 21st, respectively.
