Video: Huge Crash at Daytona 500 Takes Out Over 20 cars

Denny Hamlin won the Daytona 500 on Sunday, finishing ahead of Kyle Busch and Erik Jones to complete a 1-2-3 sweep for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Hamlin's triumph was his second in four years at the Florida venue and was a perfectly timed tribute to the memory of JD Gibbs, who died last month after a four-year-long battle with a neurological disease.

JD Gibbs co-founded the Gibbs Racing team with his father Joe and was responsible for discovering Hamlin and giving him a chance to establish himself in the Nascar series.

"It was just one of those days where I felt like it was meant to be," Hamlin, who broke a 47-race wait for a win, told Nascar.com.

"Hats off to Kyle as well. I know he was eagerly wanting his first victory in the Daytona 500, but today we just weren't going to be denied.

"The whole [Gibbs] family—they did so much for me over the course of my career. This one is for J.D. We're desperately going to miss him the rest of our lives. His legacy still lives on through Joe Gibbs Racing and I'm proud to do this for them."

The race was characterized by a series of chaotic accidents, which twice forced race officials to stop proceedings for almost 40 minutes. The last 20 laps of regulation alone saw five separate crashes, with the biggest of them coming with just 10 laps to go.

As Busch and the four cars behind him safely negotiated a bend shortly after a re-start, Paul Menard turned into Matt DiBenedetto, sending him slamming into the wall. The crash immediately triggered chaos, with around 21 cars collected in the ensuing pandemonium.

A red flag was unfurled to allow track marshals to remove debris from the track, which had temporarily turned into something between a parking lot and a scrap yard.

According to Fox Sports, aside from Menard and DiBenedetto, the drivers involved were Tyler Reddick, Matt Tifft, Chris Buescher and David Ragan, as well as Daniel Suarez, Kyle Larson and Jimmie Johnson.

Defending Daytona 500 champion Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott, Daniel Hemric and Ryan Newman were also among the drivers whose cars were collected in the crash, as were Aric Almirola, Erik Jones, Martin Truex Jr., Ryan Blaney, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Ty Dillon.

Speaking after the race, Menard admitted the blame for the crash, which wiped out half of the 40-car-strong field, should lay firmly at his doorstep.

"I'll take the blame for that one," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.