So it’s a day later now and the kid is the toast of America, or at least the part of America that loves Budweiser and Silverados and Dale Jr. goin’ to the front, and thinks country music is Brad Paisley singin’ about water.

Trevor Bayne, come on down, son. You da man.

And if you think that means the lesson of Daytona 2011 is that anyone, even a just-turned 20-year-old, can win a restrictor plate race, think again. This was no fluke. The kid won because he was smarter and cooler and more patient than all the older and presumably wiser heads around him, which is why they wrecked and he didn’t. And then he made the veteran move at the end to shut down Carl Edwards.

That’s quality stuff. So, remember his name.

Remember, too, what happened on lap 133.

What happened on lap 133 is the real lesson you take away from Sunday, when everyone stood silent on the third lap and raised three fingers to the sky in memory of Dale Earnhardt. Lap 133 was his parting gift to the sport he ruled. He died so it would be what it was, which is just another lap in a daylong yellow-speckled parade.

Lap 133 is when Matt Kenseth likely dies, had it not been for the Intimidator.

In the blink of an eye, Kenseth got tapped on the bumper and turned straight into the wall at 200 mph, a head-on shot that happened so quickly, and with such force, you barely had time to gasp. The impact was so brutal it briefly lifted all four wheels off the ground, and it instantly turned the front of his car into confetti – evoking memories of the hood of Earnhardt’s car flapping in the sunlight like a loose shingle on that horrible day a decade ago.

And yet … as it turned out, it was just another crash on a day full of crashes, no more significant or tragic than any other. Kenseth emerged from the car unscathed. The Fox announcing team dutifully reported as much. And that was the last anyone mentioned it.

But if this had been 10 years ago, Kenseth more than likely would have been dead. Cause of death would have been a basal skull fracture, which is what killed Earnhardt when he slewed up the banking and went nose-first into the wall back in 2001.

Because of that – and because of the similar deaths of Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin and Tony Roper, all within a year’s span – NASCAR mandated use of the HANS head-stabilizing device that has been standard issue for a decade now. A little later on, it installed the SAFER barrier pioneered by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway over the pitiless concrete walls of even its most iconic tracks.

The SAFER barrier is what Kenseth, trussed up in a HANS device, smacked Sunday. It’s why he dropped the netting and climbed out of the car under his own steam. It’s why lap 133 doesn’t mean anything more today, ultimately, than it did 48 hours ago.

You want to talk about Dale Earnhardt’s legacy, 10 years on, talk about that.

Talk about four drivers dying in the space of a year, and not a single fatality since. Talk about a day of record mayhem – 16 cautions for 60 laps, cars busting the inside wall and the outside wall and one another in an endless spray of sheet metal – and nothing in the way of serious injuries. Talk about Dale Jr. himself getting turned into the wall at the very end, and walking away with nothing more serious than a sour feeling in his gut.

He surely was disgusted and frustrated and aggravated, after being in the hunt all day. But that’s all.

And how is that not enough?