Even rain can’t rain on Earnhardt’s parade
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the season-opening Daytona 500 on Sunday, ending a 57-race winless streak and becoming an instant championship contender in the Sprint Cup Series.
Earnhardt led the final 18 laps in winning the Great American Race for the second time, pulling away on a restart with two laps left and hanging on as the race ended under caution nearly 11 hours after it began because of a rain delay of more than six hours.
‘‘Hell, yeah!’’ Earnhardt radioed his team as his car crossed the finish ahead of Denny Hamlin and Jeff Gordon. ‘‘I’m going to burn this down. Unbelievable!’’
‘‘I love you, man,’’ replied Steve Letarte, who is in his final season as Earnhardt’s crew chief before moving to a TV analyst role next year.
It was Earnhardt’s second victory in the Daytona 500 and his 20th on the Sprint Cup circuit.
‘‘Winning this race is the greatest feeling that you can feel in this sport, other than winning the [Sprint Cup] championship,’’ said Earnhardt, whose last victory in NASCAR’s signature event was 10 years ago. ‘‘I didn’t know if I would ever get the chance to feel this again.’’
Hamlin was second, followed by Gordon, Brad Keselowski and Jimmie Johnson.
‘‘He’s such a competitor, and there’s no better race to win than the Daytona 500, especially for Junior,’’ said Gordon, Earnhardt’s teammate on Hendrick Motorsports. ‘‘There is something unique and special because of his fan base.’’
Under NASCAR’s new Chase for the Sprint Cup format, any race winner quali- fies for the season-ending 10-race playoff, which also will feature elimination rounds and a winner-take-all season finale among four drivers.
Making the title run was a relief for Earnhardt, who hadn’t won on the Cup circuit since June 2012 and had endured a four-year winless streak before that.
‘‘I’d like to tell my fans that we pretty much [are] in the Chase,’’ said Earnhardt, who has been voted NASCAR’s most popular driver 10 times. ‘‘You ain’t got to worry about that!’’
Though he hadn’t won at Daytona since 2004, he had been the runner-up in the race three of the last four years.
‘‘This is amazing,’’ Earnhardt said. ‘‘I can’t believe this is happening. I’ll never take this for granted, man. This doesn’t happen twice, let alone once. Just real thankful.’’