DAYTONA BEACH, Fla – Winning the Daytona 500 is a career achieving moment. It’s something that will forever be associated with your name. It’s something that obviously causes a big celebration.

Sunday’s winner Denny Hamlin said it best, “I’m going to hate tomorrow morning but love the rest of my life,” after picking up his second Daytona 500 triumph. But, for the team, it could be a distraction for the upcoming week though too.

Hamlin was in his second race of his career with crew chief Chris Gabehart. This will be the first full time season though for the two. After winning, Gabehart was happy and will be celebrating too, but he doesn’t want to get too high on the high’s or too low on the low’s. With having that championship level thinking, it could cause some anxiety for his workload for the week.

Despite the win, the schedule doesn’t stop. They still have to be in Atlanta in Friday for practice and race next Sunday. Typically though, teams debrief on Monday mornings and turn the chapter for the next week’s race.

The No. 11 team can’t do that.

They will take part in the Winner’s Breakfast at the Daytona International Speedway to further celebrate their win. Hamlin, goes on a victory tour. The team doesn’t really get back to the shop in North Carolina until late Monday.

“Yeah, well, I can tell you the unfortunate truth is we probably just lost the day preparing because we’re going to be here putting a car in a museum, and that’s okay with us,” said Gabehart. “But you’re right, with all the unknowns in NASCAR right now, with the rules package, I think you guys are in for a treat week to week.  You’re never going to know — everybody is trying to figure it out and every racetrack is going to be a little bit different.  There’s going to be a lot of comers and goers to start the season, but I have so much confidence in the people around us, Joe Gibbs Racing and FedEx and Denny trusting in me to allow me to do this, and we’ve just got such a strong group around us.  I’m just the lucky guy that every now and then gets to jump up and call the play.

“But in the past three months it’s become so evident to me that it’s about the people around you, and I’m just a very small part of that, and let me tell you, this 11 team, FedEx team has a very good group around them, and I couldn’t be more excited to get going.”

Gabehart said he doesn’t want to discredit the win, but he’s already thinking about Atlanta.

The weird good thing for the celebration is that Hamlin and Gabehart have been under the weather the last few weeks and will be a bit tamer than in 2016. But, they still want the team to celebrate and enjoy this victory.

Yeah, I may have — yeah, it’s been a tough couple weeks, just being sick a little bit,” said Hamlin. “I’m not going to get too crazy, but I want the team guys to really enjoy it.  I mean, there’s a lot of new faces, a lot of the same faces that we’ve had that were here in 2016 that got to enjoy it, and I just never will forget celebrating with them and seeing how excited they were after winning a Daytona 500, because you just honestly never know.  You’re a pit crew guy, you could be moved to another team, you don’t know if — if you don’t, will you ever win it again.

“I encouraged all those guys to really live in the moment and enjoy it because definitely — that was some of my fondest memories from the first one was spending it with the team guys.”