Daytona winner Trevor Bayne takes victory lap in S.F.

When Trevor Bayne turned 20 on Saturday, he was known only to fans of NASCAR's second-tier Nationwide Series and his immediate family.

On Tuesday night he received a Highway Patrol escort to San Francisco and arrived at Ghirardelli Square to loud cheers from a crowd of new fans. He's on a whirlwind media tour that took him to ESPN studios in Connecticut, then to Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

That's what happens when you become the youngest driver, by five years, to win the Daytona 500. On Sunday, the youngster survived a crash-filled race to get to the winner's circle. It took him a while to find it.

"Every time I get a second by myself, it hits me all over again," Bayne said. "I couldn't ask for anything better than this."

If NASCAR could invent a new character to give its Sprint Cup Series a jolt of excitement, he would probably look and act just like Bayne, a handsome guy with perfect teeth who couldn't be more polite.

He's happier than a kid in a candy shop, which was exactly the situation he found himself in Tuesday, 3,000 miles from the scene of his improbable victory. In front of TV cameras, Ghirardelli Chocolate Vice President Steve Genzoli showed Bayne how to make a sundae.

As Bayne scooped ice cream as part of a promotion for the Toyota/Save Mart 350 Sprint Cup race at Infineon Raceway on June 26, he was asked if he knows his way around a kitchen.

"I nearly burned down my apartment," he said. "I cook about once a week. The rest of the time I eat out."

With his family's blessing, Bayne moved from his home in Knoxville, Tenn., when he was 15 to live on his own in Mooresville, N.C., near the NASCAR shops. After more than 300 wins in eight years of go-karting, he would become Rookie of the Year of the Hooters Pro Cup Series. He earned his high school diploma online.

He went through development stints with the Dale Earnhardt Inc. and Michael Waltrip Racing teams before joining Roush-Fenway Racing. He's on loan this year to Wood Brothers Racing for about half the Sprint Cup races.

At this point Bayne won't be racing at Infineon this year because the Nationwide Series doesn't run there.

"Hopefully (the Wood brothers) will get more sponsorship on our Cup car and I can. But as of right now I'm not."

He got some tips on the two-car drafting style that was needed on Daytona's new, smooth surface from his longtime idol, Jeff Gordon. Now he's being hailed as the next Jeff Gordon.

On Sunday night Bayne got a call from the White House. "They said the president would like to speak to me in the next couple of days," he said. His Twitter account has gone from 6,000 followers to 29,000.

He doesn't know exactly how much his share is of the $1.46 million first prize. "My computer crashed yesterday, so at least I can get a new one of those," Bayne said with a laugh.

He wore a gaudy Daytona 500 ring on his middle finger. "It didn't fit on my ring finger," he said. "I was scared I'd wake up in the middle of the night and it would all be a dream. I left it on so I could look down and see it."