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Austin Dillon, driver of the #3 DOW Chevrolet, poses with the winner’s decal in Victory Lane after winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series 60th Annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 18, 2018 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n
The theme song of the world champion Pirates was \u201cWe Are Family,\u201d a contemporaneous hit by Sister Sledge. In 1979, the close-knit underdog Pittsburgh team upset the Baltimore Orioles to win the World Series.<\/p>\n
Coincidentally, 1979 also marked the first appearance of a rookie named Dale Earnhardt in the Daytona 500. The seven-time champion and NASCAR Hall of Famer would spend 19 years\u2014with team owners Rod Osterlund, Bud Moore and Richard Childress\u2014trying in vain to win the Great American Race.<\/p>\n
Earnhardt\u2019s breakthrough victory finally came in 1998, and when he celebrated in Victory Lane after the emotional win, Childress and his two grandsons, Austin and Ty Dillon, were there with him. Austin was seven years old at the time. Ty was five.<\/p>\n
Twenty years and three days after Earnhardt triumphed at the 2.5-mile superspeedway, Austin Dillon returned to Victory Lane as the winner of a rough-and-tumble Daytona 500.<\/p>\n
Dillon started from the rear of the field in a backup car and drove a patient race\u2014until he tagged then-leader Aric Almirola on the final lap\u2014sacrificing points for a chance to win the most important and prestigious prize, the Harley J. Earl trophy.<\/p>\n
Childress and Earnhardt were best friends, but Dillon is flesh and blood, the son of Mike Dillon and Childress\u2019 daughter Tina.<\/p>\n
For Childress, comparing the two victories was difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re both so different,\u201d Childress told the NASCAR Wire Service at the Daytona 500 Champion\u2019s Breakfast at the speedway on Monday morning. \u201cI knew how important \u201998 was for Dale to win the Daytona 500. We had been so close so many times, and it wouldn\u2019t have been right if he didn\u2019t have it on his resume.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was one of the most special wins I\u2019ve ever been involved with. And then last night, to see my grandson come across there 20 years later and win the Daytona 500, it\u2019s hard to beat blood. …\u201d<\/p>\n
With a catch in his voice, Childress let the words hang and put his arm around Dillon\u2019s shoulders.<\/p>\n
But this Daytona 500 was not simply about immediate family. Dillon is the first champion in recent memory to sit in the winner\u2019s chair in the Bill France Room at the speedway and single out each of his team members by name and recite their specific racing histories. And make no mistake, they are all racers.<\/p>\n
Rear tire changer Jake Lind, for example, is the son of Will Lind, the rear tire changer for the \u201cFlying Aces\u201d crew that dominated the sport with Earnhardt in the 1980s and 1990s.<\/p>\n
As racers are wont to do, Dillon\u2019s crew celebrated the Daytona 500 victory into the wee hours at Tijuana Flats, an establishment owned by one of Dillon\u2019s friends. The large \u201cextended family\u201d of Dillon\u2019s cohorts is called the \u201cWolfpack,\u201d and after the party died down at Tijuana Flats, the entourage paid a visit to Daytona Hardcore Tattoo to get inked with the image of a wolf howling at the moon.<\/p>\n
Dillon got a different tattoo.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got a tattoo last night,\u201d Dillon acknowledged. \u201cIt says \u2018Daytona 500 Champ\u2019 on it\u2014it\u2019s pretty cool, and you\u2019ll never be able to see it either. …<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hurt. It feels OK this morning, but one of the boys smacked me on the butt when I came over here, and I said, \u2018Easy, guys.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Crew chief Justin Alexander opted out of a tattoo but made a promise.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we win a championship, I\u2019ll get one on my face, if you want,\u201d Alexander told Dillon.<\/p>\n
Given the momentum Dillon and his team carry out of Daytona, and given the cohesiveness of this tight-knit racing \u201cfamily,\u201d don\u2019t be surprised if you see a crew chief on pit road with a \u201c3\u201d on his cheek when next year\u2019s Daytona 500 rolls around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 If Austin Dillon\u2019s No. 3 Richard Childress Racing team decided to steal a page from the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates, it would be entirely appropriate. The theme song of the world champion Pirates was \u201cWe Are Family,\u201d a contemporaneous hit by Sister Sledge. In 1979, the close-knit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[322,42,287,16],"class_list":["post-14868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-austin-dillon","tag-daytona-500","tag-daytona-international-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/DIS_MENCS_Sticker_021818.jpg?fit=3694%2C2459&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-3RO","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14868"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14871,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14868\/revisions\/14871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}