Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne isn’t exactly prepared for the media blitz he’s about to undergo. Over the next few days, he’ll fly all over the country, making stops in San Francisco and Los Angeles before ending up in Phoenix.
Trevor Bayne: Daytona 500 Winner’s Press Conference Highlights
While most of the big-name drivers pack an extra bag in case they win the Daytona 500 – and therefore don’t return home for several weeks – Bayne didn’t take his chances seriously.
“I got two T-shirts,” he said. “I thought it was a big joke. But here we are. I guess I better call somebody that can make up a suit and get some clothes down here for me.”
That was just one of the highlights from Bayne's entertaining post-race press conference. Among the others was his admission that he drove himself down to Daytona for the race instead of fly – in his personal pickup truck.
“I drove down (to Florida) in my F-150,” he said. “I was planning on driving it back. They told me somebody else is going to have to drive it back for me.”
Bayne said he felt like he was in a dream, and he even acted like it. At one point, after switching from subject to subject, he apologized to the media.
“Sorry if I’m bouncing around on questions and answers,” he said. “I figure I can do whatever I want to, since this is just a dream anyway.”
Having just turned 20 years old one day before the Daytona 500, Bayne said he celebrated his birthday in quiet fashion. He and his friends rode around in the Daytona infield on a golf cart, and “a couple of my buddies got in a wheelbarrow race.”
“They won, too,” he said, then cracked: “That’s what inspired me to win the race.”
Bayne said after the race, he had no clue where Daytona’s Victory Lane was. He had to put the car into reverse and back it up when he made a wrong turn.
He saw one of his former crewmen and asked, “How do I get to Victory Lane?” The crewman pointed him in the right direction.
“I’m glad we made it all right,” Bayne cracked.
Even when he was leading on the last lap, Bayne said he didn’t think he would actually win the Daytona 500. During the final caution, he told himself that even if he lost the race, “It would be kind of cool to say we were leading at the start of the green-white-checkered.”
“I got to the white flag and I’m like, ‘At least we can say I led at the white flag,’” he added. “We get to Turn 4 and we were still leading. (I thought), ‘Man, somebody’s going to pass us is what’s going to happen here.’
“Then nobody ever did. So, you know, wow, really.”
One of Bayne’s biggest priorities, he said, is to stay humble.
“I definitely think humility is something to hang onto for everybody,” he said. “All the young kids that are doing their sports or whatever, just stay grounded. Remember that if it wasn’t for somebody else helping you, you wouldn’t be sitting where you are.
“I’ve had so many people help me along the way that kept me grounded.”
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