Denny Hamlin Nabs Daytona 500

There he was, hanging out in the back. Victory Lane at the Daytona 500 is always an overcrowded place. There are hundreds of people packed into a fenced-in lot designed for dozens. A mob of sweaty, overstimulated corporate executives, NASCAR officials, media members, fans who managed to sneak in through a side gate and ... oh yeah, Denny Hamlin and his team, the ones who'd just become Daytona 500 champions.

On Sunday afternoon, as confetti cannons fired into the setting sun, the architect of that team had blended into the background. But the men that he'd assembled were having nothing of it. The call began to echo through the FedEx crew.

"Where's J.D.?!"

The sea of black uniforms parted and they guided the man to the front of the stage to take his place with Hamlin, alongside the Harley J. Earl Trophy, just in time for the ceremonial champagne spray.

The driver grabbed the man and hugged his neck. "We love you, brother. This is for you."

J.D. Gibbs is the president of Joe Gibbs Racing, the team founded in 1992 by its namesake and his father, the Pro Football Hall of Famer. When the elder Gibbs decided to leave his post as head coach of the Washington Redskins to fully focus on owning a NASCAR team, every move he made was with J.D. at his side. The kid was 23 years old.

When his father returned to the NFL in 2004, J.D. was left to run the race team. He signed Hamlin, himself 23 years old, to a JGR development deal after stumbling over the Virginian during a Late Model test. The following year, they won the Sprint Cup championship with Tony Stewart. In 2008 he oversaw the signing of Kyle Busch, one year after electing to take a manufacturing plunge, switching from General Motors to NASCAR newbie Toyota. J.D. Gibbs made the call to scale down JGR's in-house engine program, choosing to go all-in with Toyota Racing Development. An offshoot of that big move was solidifying the team's role as the flagship of Toyota's NASCAR effort. A byproduct of that move was a technical relationship with Furniture Row Racing and its driver, Martin Truex Jr.

On Sunday, all of those forces put in motion by J.D. Gibbs combined to overwhelm the 58th edition of Great American Race. Hamlin powered past teammate Matt Kenseth to take the lead on the race's final lap, edged Truex by the closest margin of victory since NASCAR introduced electronic scoring in 1993, and was followed by two more teammates, Kyle Busch (third) and Carl Edwards (fifth). And it all happened on J.D. Gibbs's 47th birthday.