Daytona 500 takeaways: With or without a title, Denny Hamlin is a NASCAR Hall of Famer
We can start planning for Denny Hamlin’s Hall of Fame induction.
Hamlin, 39, became just the sixth driver to win three or more Daytona 500s Monday night when he crossed the finish line inches ahead of Ryan Blaney as Ryan Newman’s car was involved in a vicious wreck. In addition to becoming the sixth driver with three or more wins, Hamlin also became the fourth driver to win consecutive Daytona 500s.
“When I think about the names, and [crew chief Chris Gabehart] is always quick to remind me of what a win would do here, where does it put you and the names that it puts you with, I consider those professors of racing like this, and I'm just a guy that's a student, and it's been great to be on the run that we've been on the last five years at this racetrack — well, more than five,” Hamlin said. “It's been eight years or so that we've been fantastic here.”
Being fantastic at Daytona is a great way to be a NASCAR legend. The other five drivers with three or more Daytona 500 titles — Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, Jeff Gordon, and Dale Jarrett — are all retired and enshrined in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Those five also have Cup Series titles. Hamlin, as of now, does not. That’s obviously a big difference. But after a fantastic 2019, Hamlin is poised for another championship-caliber season and there’s no reason to think he doesn’t have as great a shot as anyone to be one of the four drivers racing for the championship at Phoenix in November.
But even if Hamlin doesn’t win a title in 2020 or at all before he hangs it up as a Cup Series driver, he’s already got a career worthy of the Hall of Fame.
The victory was Hamlin’s 38th in his 507th start. The only drivers ahead of him on the career wins list are either active, like Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick, or haven’t been eligible for a Hall of Fame ballot yet like Matt Kenseth.
One of the drivers ahead of Hamlin on that wins list is Mark Martin. He won 40 races across 882 career Cup Series starts and never won either a Daytona 500 or a Cup Series title. Hamlin could easily pass Martin’s win mark this year in far fewer starts.
If Mark Martin is a Hall of Famer — and he deservedly is — Hamlin is too.
Complete Ryan Newman crash coverage
Roush Fenway Racing said Tuesday afternoon that Newman was awake and communicating with doctors and family. Monday night the team said that Newman had been hospitalized in serious condition with injuries that weren’t believed to be life-threatening.
Newman’s crash is both a reminder of the safety advances NASCAR has made in the 19 years since Dale Earnhardt’s death and a reminder that there is no such thing as racing ever being too safe.
Fox disappears when viewers needed it
Monday’s rain-delayed Daytona 500 was an inconvenience for Fox. The network failed to capitalize on a ratings bump that coincided with President Donald Trump’s presence on Sunday and had to adjust local affiliates’ weekday afternoon schedules with the broadcast of the final 180 laps of the race, a marathon that extended into Fox’s Monday night programming lineup.
Newman’s crash happened just before 8 p.m. ET, when Fox’s primetime programming was set to kick off. Not wanting to disrupt its lineup all that much, Fox gave a brief update on Newman and said that he was going to the hospital amidst its abbreviated post-race coverage. By the time 8:10 p.m. ET rolled around, 9-1-1 Lone Star was beginning.
Fox has two sports cable channels, Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2. It reasoned that post-race coverage would get bumped to one of those as the new primetime series began. Instead, FS1’s programming didn’t budge from a college basketball game while FS2 kept broadcasting a taped motorcycle race before a scheduled replay of the 500 that had just concluded. Viewers looking to find continued coverage from NASCAR’s TV partner about Newman’s crash and the Daytona 500 were left without a channel to turn to. Yahoo Sports has reached out to Fox to ask why.
With no coverage from Fox or an immediate statement from NASCAR confirming that Newman had, in fact, been taken to a local hospital, NASCAR fans and those whose attention turned to NASCAR after Newman’s crash only had social media to rely on for updates about his condition until official word came.
And social media isn’t exactly the best place to be for accurate information when speculation runs rampant when minutes keep passing without an official update.
Fox had a chance to shepherd those worried for Newman’s health through the uncertainty with responsibility and calm while helping to dictate the terms of the conversation in the immediate aftermath of his horrific accident. Instead, it left TV viewers without a place to turn to.
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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