RELATED: Hamlin wins race | Full race results | Truex: 'It hurts a little bit'
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Martin Truex Jr. wasn't sure who had won the Daytona 500 when he and Denny Hamlin came across the start-finish line, their cars inches apart after a nanosecond shy of 500 miles of racing at Daytona International Speedway.
David Wilson, Toyota Racing Development president, didn't know, either. Cole Pearn, Truex's crew chief at Furniture Row Racing, had his own hunch. Truex checked the SprintVision big screen to his left after flying under the checkered flag to see the replay for the first time. He suspects it won't be the last time.
"Just going to have to watch that on the highlight reel for the rest of my career, I suppose, the rest of my life," said Truex, who came home second on the short end of the closest finish -- 0.010 seconds -- in the 58-year history of the Great American Race.
"I remember when it happened to Mark Martin, poor guy, been so close here so many times. They still show the highlight. The picture of that race is in the tunnel when you come in in Turn 1. I have a feeling I'm going to have to see that same thing for a long time. It hurts a little bit, but a lot to be proud of, for sure."
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The consolation for Truex came in the form of his first-ever top-five finish at the 2.5-mile track and a successful start of his No. 78 team's union with Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing. The 35-year-old driver admitted that the result stung, but that he was at peace with the last-lap shuffle that left him within a fraction of Hamlin and his first taste of Daytona victory.
Truex sat second behind race leader Matt Kenseth as the field took the white flag. When Kenseth moved to block Hamlin's heady charge in the outside lane on the backstretch, it cleared the way for Truex to storm to the front on the low side.
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But Hamlin's momentum wasn't stalled for long, and his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 steamed alongside Truex's No. 78. The two cars scraped with the checkered flag in sight, with a nearly 190-mph broadside battle decided by less than a ruler.
"I feel like we were in really good position just doing what we did," Truex said. "Circumstances didn't work out quite as well as they should have. I could have done a little bit different coming to the line. I felt like I should have run Denny up the track a little bit, but I didn't. It is what it is."
His radio crackled with blitz of sound that didn't indicate whether he'd won or not.
"I knew it was close. I knew it was really close," Truex said. "I didn't think either way. I just said, 'Damn, that was close.' I mean, that was the only thing I could think of."
Pearn, from atop the Colorado-based team's pit box, had a different vantage point.
"Nah, I saw when they passed. They had us," Pearn said. "But man, not for very long. I thought we had it, but it always seems to work out that way -- that outside line, that last little chute. I remember the year Harvick won it over Mark Martin, it was almost the same deal. It just seems like the way it plays out there going to the line."
That 2007 Daytona 500 finish -- etched in Pearn's mind and commemorated on Daytona's Turn 1 tunnel wall -- has resonated as one of the race's most memorable. The margin that day -- .020 seconds, double the amount of Hamlin's gap and a record that stood until Sunday.
Truex's Speedweeks remain memorable all the same. The team rallied from a crash during last weekend's Sprint Unlimited that forced them to a reserve car, then overcame a technical issue with a roof flap in Daytona 500 qualifying that kept them from posting a time.
But Truex has overcome much more. One week ago, his bylined article in The Players Tribune documented the 17-month-long fight that his girlfriend, Sherry Pollex, has waged with ovarian cancer and their triumph through life's hardships.
Truex wasn't sure if he'd won in the split second that he crossed the start-finish line alongside Hamlin. But Pollex tweeted at the end of a warm Sunday afternoon that "no matter what, Martin Truex Jr. and I are leaving here winning."
Another staggering dose of perspective in a stunning day of history at Daytona.
"Two years ago I would have been sitting here with a sourpuss on my face," Truex said. "Today was a great day."