NASCAR Number

Distributed by The Sports Xchange

There are 80 days left before the Feb. 24, 2013, Daytona 500; hence the number for today is:

80: The number of career top fives in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin, who has started 259 races at NASCAR's highest level. Hamlin scored two of those top fives at Daytona, in the July race of 2009 and the Daytona 500 of 2012. The latter finish-a fourth last February-was a breakthrough for Hamlin, whose fortunes in the Great American Race previously had been star-crossed. Before his fourth-place run in the Daytona 500, Hamlin had finished no better than 17th in six previous starts in that race.