DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) – Look out Tony Stewart, your new rookie teammate has a lot of muscle he’s ready to flex this season.

Denny Hamlin shocked NASCAR on Sunday by beating Stewart and the rest of the big shots to steal a win in the exhibition Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway.

Hamlin led 16 of the 70-laps and was heading toward an easy win when Stewart, his veteran teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing, used a wide pass to take the lead away from him with four laps to go. But seconds after Stewart moved to the front, the caution flag came out for debris on the track, setting up a two-lap shootout to the finish.

Stewart restarted on the bottom of the track, with Hamlin right next to him when racing resumed. Hamlin quickly moved out front, then held off challenges from Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. to win for the first time in NASCAR’s top series.

As the baby-faced Virginian celebrated with burnouts on the front of the track, his parents sobbed in celebration.

“I can’t believe it, it wasn’t two years ago I that I was here as a visitor of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s,” the 25-year-old said. “This is the first time I’ve even been to Victory Lane. I just can’t believe it.”

Earnhardt and Stewart, two of NASCAR’s top restrictor-plate racers, finished second and third. Scott Riggs was fourth and defending race winner Jimmie Johnson was fifth.

Stewart, suddenly the veteran at Joe Gibbs Racing following Bobby Labonte’s offseason departure, was pleased with the rookie’s show.

“He drove a smart race, he was patient and I thought he did everything right,” Stewart said.

But Stewart also was furious about the racing conditions on NASCAR’s fastest track. Teams are required to use restrictor-plates on the 2.5-mile track that sap the horsepower and limit the speeds.

The result is a long pack of cars unable to separate from one another, forcing drivers to shove one another out of the way. It’s a dangerous practice that Stewart and others believe will lead to disaster at the track where Dale Earnhardt was killed five years ago in an accident.

“They’re talking about the tribute to Dale Earnhardt, well, five years from now, we’re going to have to do another tribute to another driver because we’re probably going to kill somebody (next week),” Stewart barked. “It could be me, it could be Dale Jr., it could be anybody out there.

“We’re going to hurt somebody really, really bad next Sunday (in the Daytona 500). We’ve got to find some way of calming this down.”

Earnhardt Jr. was less critical of the conditions, chalking up much of the aggression to the nothing-to-lose mentality of the Shootout. With the Daytona 500 title on the line next Sunday, Junior believes the event will be less treacherous.

“Tony’s got a point, it was a dangerous in a couple of spots,” he said. “It’s just hard racing, but it’s only going to happen in the Shootout. In the 500, it will not be like that. Everybody will be a lot more calm.”

The Budweiser Shootout is a made-for-TV event only open to drivers who won a pole last season and past winners of the event. Hamlin barely made it in.

He was a Busch Series driver last season when Gibbs fired Jason Leffler midway through the year. Terry Labonte and J.J. Yeley took turns driving the car until Gibbs tabbed Hamlin to finish out the final seven races of the season.

It was a tryout of sorts: If Hamlin didn’t screw up too bad, the job would probably go to him on a full-time basis. He responded with three top 10 finishes during his stint, and won the pole at Phoenix – the second-to-last event of the year – to qualify for the Shootout.