DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — In one of the biggest upsets in NASCAR history, 20-year-old Trevor Bayne won the Daytona 500 Sunday, making him the youngest winner in the 53-year history of NASCAR’s Great American Race.
Bayne is too young to legally buy alcohol or, in most cases, to rent a car. He was a teenager from Tennessee when he arrived at Daytona earlier this month, only turning 20 Saturday. But he out-drove every one of stock-car racing’s veterans Sunday, blasting to a victory in only his second race in NASCAR’s top series.
Bayne then had trouble finding where he was supposed to celebrate, missing the turn to Victory Lane and having to throw the car into reverse to get there.
“I didn’t know how to get to Victory Lane,” said Bayne, who sported a giddy smile for hours after the race ended. “But we will find our way back hopefully.”
If NASCAR’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., wasn’t going to win the race held on the 10th anniversary of his father’s death (he finished 24th after a late crash), this was the next-best scenario for the sport.
Bayne is a God-fearing, apple-cheeked, personable 20-year-old. He likes to play the guitar, wear T-shirts, snowboard and Twitter.
In other words, Bayne hits an ideal demographic for NASCAR, whose television ratings and attendance dropped dramatically in 2010. But the sport’s next major star might have been born on Sunday.
You will be hard-pressed to miss Bayne this week as his publicity machine revs from 0 to 200 mph.
“He’s about to have the greatest week of his life,” said Carl Edwards, who finished second to Bayne when Bayne neatly blocked Edwards’ charge during the overtime finish.
Edwards then reconsidered, perhaps thinking of his wife and baby: “I mean, until he has children.”
Bayne isn’t close to having children. As he tweeted a week ago on Valentine’s Day: “Happy valentine’s day! Too bad I’m ridin solo! Haha”
Bayne is so young that he idolized Jeff Gordon growing up. He’s so young that he was 9 years old when Earnhardt Sr. died at Daytona in 2001. He’s so young that he only shaves once a week and has said “Rugrats” is his favorite TV show.
Did Bayne really come from nowhere to win the Daytona 500?
Not quite. While he sounds like he hails from Disney central casting, he really came from Knoxville — where he sometimes skipped other kids’ birthday parties to go racing go-karts.
At age 5.
So even though he is only 20, about 75 percent of Bayne’s life has been headed toward this moment. He stopped going to high school midway through, obtaining his G.E.D. online so he could concentrate more on his racing career.
That career has had some stumbles. Although Sunday was only Bayne’s second start in NASCAR’s headline series, the Sprint Cup, he has started 51 races in the second-tier Nationwide Series since 2008. He’s gone 0-for-51 there. He has lost rides and sponsors, but always gained others.
Bayne won Saturday in a No.21 Ford retrofitted to look like David Pearson’s famous car, which Pearson used to win the Daytona 500 in 1976. That victory, like Bayne’s, also came for the well-loved Wood Brothers team — which hadn’t won the Daytona 500 since Pearson’s victory 35 years ago.
“He (Bayne) has got a tremendous awareness in the car,” said Eddie Wood, co-owner of the No. 21 car. “The great ones are like that.”
Sunday’s Daytona 500 was notable for both a record number of lead changes (74) and caution flags (16). Bayne stayed out of trouble — a 14-car wreck wiped out several favorites early.
Pearson, a longtime master of not leading until the end of the race as Bayne did Sunday, advised Bayne to be careful before the race began.
“I told him to keep his head straight and not to do anything crazy,” said Pearson.
The racing at this year’s Daytona 500 was dominated by cars breaking away two at a time, and Bayne was generally a “pusher” throughout the race.
But he found himself in the front for the final laps after a series of caution flags and held off every charge with the aid of a very fast car.
“They gave me a rocket ship,” Bayne said of his team.
The victory stunned most everyone. On Fox Sports’ telecast, analyst Darrell Waltrip showed what he said was his “bio sheet” about Bayne. It was a blank piece of typing paper.
While normally well-spoken, Bayne veered off course a couple of times in his post-race news conference.
“Sorry if I’m bouncing around on questions and answers,” Bayne said. “Figure I can do whatever I want to — it’s just a dream anyway.”
Bayne is only a part-time driver in the Sprint Cup series. He finished 17th at his only other Sprint Cup race last year in Texas.
“I almost feel undeserving,” he said of the Daytona victory.
The Wood Brothers team planned to run Bayne in only 17 of 36 Sprint Cup races this year, although that may change now. Bayne will remain a full-time driver in the Nationwide Series (where he started a Bible study group last year that ultimately included 12 veteran drivers).
Bayne officially declared that the Nationwide championship was the one he was shooting for this season, meaning that he earned zero points Sunday in the Sprint Cup series.
But he got the trophy, the winner’s purse of $1.46 million and the chance to introduce himself to a sport that certainly could use a new star. Second-place finisher Edwards has become a good friend of Bayne’s.
“I think,” Edwards said, “the world is going to like him a lot.”
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