The JGR Boys Dominate in Daytona

What an amazing Speedweeks!  Carl's #19 Arris Toyota showed speed throughout.  He usually logged practice times in the top ten.  Last weekend he started the Unlimited in 19th place, but that was not a reflection of his car.  For that race, starting positions are determined by a random draw.  He raced near the front for most of the race, but then his impatience got the best of him.  He tried to push just a little too hard and ended up in the wall, finishing the race in 16th place.  Well, if you are going to take risks, this race is a safe place to do it, from the standpoint of the championship hunt.

In his Duel, he finished 4th, placing him in the 10th spot for the Daytona starting grid.  Once the race got underway, he and his teammates worked their way to the front and ran up there together at the beginning of the afternoon.  Unfortunately he got caught up in a couple of spinouts from his competitors.  The first was the result of Chase Elliott spinning out and sliding across his nose.  That damage was minimal compared to what was coming next.

When Brian Vickers tapped the back of Joey Logano's car and spun out, he started a chain reaction of cars trying to avoid the incident.  Trevor Bayne, running up near the wall behind Carl, did not whoa up as quickly as Carl did and tagged the back of the Arris Toyota, pushing Carl into the outside wall.  Carl's crew, led by his new crew chief Dave Rogers, got the car patched up and back onto the track only one lap down.  He spent a good portion of the race running between 36th and 39th.

Finally on lap 118 he was in position to take advantage of the lucky dog and get back onto the lead lap.  He was eventually able to work his way back up to his teammates in the front.  With the right front corner of his car flapping in the air, the four Gibbs cars lead the charge toward the finish line.

Matt Kenseth held the lead and looked to be in control of the race.  On the last lap, though, Denny Hamlin jumped to the upper lane, and with a push from Kevin Harvick began to close the distance.  Matt tried to block, a move that seldom goes well at 200 miles per hour.  Kenseth had to check up, leaving Hamlin alongside Martin Truex dueling for the lead.  The Toyotas crossed the line in a photo finish.  Denny was victorious by only a few inches, winning his first Daytona 500 by the closest margin of victory in the history of the Daytona 500.  Kenseth finished in 14th.

And Carl?  With his car that no longer had a right front corner, except for the pieces flapping and waving in the air?  He came home in 5th place!  With Kyle Busch finishing in 3rd place, three of the four Gibbs cars finished in the top five.

This is a special year for JGR as they celebrate 25 years of racing.  Plus it has been 23 years since they won the Daytona 500.  This was a perfect time to do it again.  This was Toyota's first victory in the Daytona 500.  And a specially timed birthday present for JD Gibbs, too.

Ironically the Fox announcers claimed that the dominant race teams were from the Hendrick and Gibbs stables.  But during the first half of the race, most of their attention was focused on the Hendrick drivers.  While understandable given the situation, Jeff Gordon's obvious bias toward his former teammates was both annoying and unprofessional.  But as the race wore on, the Hendrick drivers were one by one running into problems.

First, Chase Elliott's spin on lap 18 put him in the garage for a good chunk of the race.  He finished in 37th place.  Then on lap 169, Junior spun out and found the inside wall.  His day was over with a 36th place finish.  Jimmie Johnson struggled through a pit road penalty when his crew went over the wall too soon, ending up in 16th.  Before the race began, nobody would have guessed that the best Hendrick finish would have come from Kasey Kahne in 13th.

I hope that this might open the eyes of the sportscasters as the season moves forward, but I fear it will not.  Thank goodness we get good updates from Boris at JGR and Randy Fuller, Carl's right-hand PR man.  If not for them, there are times when I am left wondering if Carl has left the track and gone home.

So it was a "good points day."  Just in case that becomes significant months from now, it is good to maintain a spot near the top of the drivers' points standings.  And Atlanta is next.  Atlanta, where Carl won his first Cup race.  And with the new lower-downforce package on the cars this year, I see next week as the real start of the 2106 NASCAR season.  I am looking forward to Atlanta far more than I was Daytona.

Congratulations to Denny Hamlin, the 11 crew, and the entire JGR organization.  I hope this win is just the beginning of a magnificent 2016 season.