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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Its been 21 years since Joe Gibbs Racing celebrated its only Daytona 500 victory. Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth have the team in good position to end the drought. The JGR drivers swept the Daytona 500 qualifying races Thursday night. For Kenseth, it was redemption after a pair of wrecks during Speedweeks. Hamlins victory kept him undefeated on 2014. Hamlin also won last Saturdays exhibition Sprint Unlimited, and he goes into Sundays season-opening Daytona 500 trying to become the first driver in history to sweep Speedweeks. "Once that snowball starts to roll, its hard to stop it, and right now were just on a heck of a run," said Hamlin, who closed last year with a win in the season finale. After going so many years without winning a second Daytona 500, team owner Joe Gibbs wasnt looking ahead. His only win was with Dale Jarrett in 1993. "Weve come with great cars over the years. It shows you what a tough race this is, the 500," he said. "This race is extremely, extremely hard to win. That probably says it the best. That says it the best, over 21 years, thats a bunch." JGR had strong cars last season and seemed to be the team to beat during the race, but came up empty when Kenseths engine failed while leading. Minutes later, teammate Kyle Buschs engine also failed. Toyota is still looking for its first win in the "Great American Race." "The last Daytona was so far away, weve moved well beyond that," said Toyota Racing Development President David Wilson. "Were certainly not sweating the issues we had last year." The qualifying races make for an emotional day as drivers race their way into the Daytona 500, while others are sent home from the biggest event of the NASCAR season. Those left broken-hearted this year were Michael McDowell, Joe Nemechek, Ryan Truex, Eric McClure and Morgan Shepherd, who at 72 was trying to become the oldest driver in the field. Dave Blaney withdrew from the qualifying race after wrecking his only car in Wednesdays practice. But it was euphoria for the small teams of Swan Racing, which got both Cole Whitt and Parker Kligerman in the race a day after both drivers wrecked in practice, and Hillman Racing, which will be in the Daytona 500 with Landon Cassill, who was hit by a car Saturday while riding his bike in Daytona. "Ive been stressed out about this since July," Cassill said. "I think Ive played this race over in my head, what I think it could do, for months now. For a small team, this race kind of makes our whole season, just the prize money alone to start on Sunday gets us through the next six or seven weeks. Its just huge for us." For Swan Racing, getting rookies Whitt and Kligerman into the field erased the nightmare of Wednesday. Whitt wrecked moments into practice, and the team was forced to rebuild his car after Kligermans was totalled when he went airborne. It was the first time Kligerman was ever upside down. Because Swan has only one backup, Kligerman got it, and the team went to work rebuilding Whitts car. Whitt raced his way in, but Kligerman faded in the first race and had to nervously watch the second race unfold to see if he earned a spot in the Daytona 500. "I feel like in a lot of ways, you have the weight of an organization on your shoulders to get these two cars in the race," Kligerman said. "Its a growing organization, an organization that wants to be around for a long time to come." But the second race ended in chaos, making everyone unsure of anything as defending Daytona 500 winner Jimmie Johnson ran out of gas on the final lap to trigger a crash that caused Clint Bowyers car to flip. "I knew he was saving gas coming to the green. Its too bad to tear cars up like that," Bowyer said. "That was one of the wildest flips Ive ever had. I think we would have been just fine if I hadnt hit the grass right here." Johnson was apologetic. "I feel terrible. To tear up that many race cars ... to see (Bowyer) flip ... certainly want to apologize to everyone," he said. "I tried to get up out of the way. So much energy in the pack that I knew I was going to get run over if I ran out because guys warned me about it -- and it did." The first race was uneventful as Kenseth led two times for 31 of the 60 laps. Harvick pulled out on the final lap to make his bid for the victory. Then Kasey Kahne pulled out of line to make it three-wide. After the race, Harvick was informed while sitting in the Fox Sports 1 studio as an analyst for the second race that his Chevrolet, sponsored by Budweiser, had failed post-race inspection for the first Budweiser Duel. "Yeah, well, well, thats no good," Harvick said. Juraj Kucka Jersey . It was the start of one nice night for the goalie and the Minnesota Wild. Backstrom made 33 saves in his first win of the season and the Wild defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 5-3 on Saturday in a rematch of their first-round playoff series. Lucas Biglia Jersey . And follow TSN.ca right through Deadline Day for all the updates. Getting Creative The Pittsburgh Penguins will try their best to acquire Ryan Kesler from the Vancouver Canucks before the Trade Deadline. http://www.authenticshopacmilan.com/c-28...-fc-jersey.aspx. Showing more spark after not taking enough challenging shots on goal in their 1-0 loss Friday night, the Bruins had 18 shots in the first period after managing just 25 in the entire opener. Luke Glendening cut Bostons lead to 2-1 at 13:20 of the second period before Milan Lucic scored late in the second and Zdeno Chara added a power-play goal early in the third. Andrea Conti Jersey .Kessy tried to show what he can do playing left wing for the Oilers in 5-0 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday in pre-season action. Alessio Romagnoli Jersey .ca. The NHL Play of the Year showdown kicks off with some slick moves going head-to-head with a combination of soft hands and endless patience.TORONTO -- At some point early in the third quarter Friday night, when the Raptors were trailing by almost 30 points and the Toronto crowd had grown hostile, DeMar DeRozan decided hed had enough. DeRozan scored 28 of his 37 points in the second half to tie his career high, but in the end, the lone strong performance wasnt enough to lift an otherwise lacklustre Raptors team in a 96-80 loss to the Chicago Bulls. "I just wanted to win, man. That was the only thing, just looking at the score, just my passion, just trying to win," said DeRozan, whose second-half outburst included a couple of big dunks and four three-pointers. The loss came against a Bulls team that was missing 2011 NBA MVP Derrick Rose, who sat out with a sore hamstring. Roses absence didnt seem to matter, as the rest of the Bulls (4-3) picked up the slack, Luol Deng leading the way with 19 points and Joakim Noah adding 18. DeRozan said his second-half scoring outburst came partly out of frustration, and frustration was written on his face down the stretch. "You can call it that. It was just the will to win," said DeRozan, who had scored 37 points twice before -- most recently in a triple overtime loss to Utah in November of last year. "Just tried to get it started, somebody had to do something, just tried to come out and bring energy, tried to get my teammates energized." It clearly didnt work in an otherwise woeful performance for the Raptors (4-6), who were coming off a 100-87 win over Memphis two nights earlier, but looked like a different team on Friday, trailing from the opening whistle and shooting just 35 per cent from the field. Rudy Gay was the only other Raptor to score in double figures with 20 points. Jonas Valanciunas had a team-high eight rebounds. "He was the one redeeming spot tonight, the way he came out and made a muscle in the second half," said Raptors coach Dwane Casey. "But again, its a 48-minute game, youve got to start that way." A group of fans chanted "Ar-gos!" late in the first half, and by midway through the thhird quarter, when the Raptors had fallen behind by 25 points, a decidedly more hostile crowd ushered the Raptors off the court during a timeout with a loud chorus of boos.dddddddddddd "There is nothing redeeming about tonight, tonight is one of those stinkers you have when youre mentally fried, physically fried," Casey said. "But again this is the NBA, there are no excuses. That wasnt us. Weve had stretches like that, but not an entire game, the way we were mentally kind of running in mud, running in place." Five Bulls scored in double figures with Carlos Boozer and Jimmy Butler adding 14 apiece, and Kirk Hinrich adding 12. Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said he was particularly happy with the performance of his forwards. "I thought they got us established in the paint early," the coach said. "Carlos was terrific, I thought Jo (Noah) was very, very active everywhere. I thought Kirk did a great job running the team. We had a very balanced scoring attack. I thought the defence overall, was excellent." The Raptors shot just 27 per cent in the first quarter and made just three of their first 14 shots as the Bulls raced out to an early nine-point lead. Boozer connected on a turnaround hook shot that put Chicago up by 11 and the Bulls took a 27-16 advantage into the second quarter. Toronto fared no better in a second quarter that saw them shoot a horrible 26 per cent, and fall behind by 19 points. The Raptors showed a brief moment of life before the break when Valanciunas faked, then drove past Noah to finish with a dunk. DeRozan completed a three-point play on the Raptors next possession to get the home team within 12. But that burst was short-lived and the Bulls took a 45-31 lead into the dressing room at halftime. Chicago began the third with a 15-4 run to go up 60-35 and put the game out of reach. NOTES: The game was the first of a stretch of six out of seven at the Air Canada Centre. The Raptors host Portland on Sunday, then are in Philadelphia on Wednesday before returning to Toronto for four in a row at Air Canada Centre. 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