Call it the duality of man. The duality of a rich man.

Denny Hamlin, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, was “down in the dumps” after his day at Talladega Superspeedway ending on lap 154. A potentially winning strategy went wrong, wrecking him and a pair of other Toyotas who were trying to assemble an army of one to win the Geico 500.

Because of the backfire, Hamlin finished next-to-last, 37th, in his 37th start at the track where he’s won twice before. Toyota occupied all four of the final spots, three because of the incident. But they also occupied the first.

Waiting to board a private jet, Hamlin, the 23XI team co-owner with NBA legend Michael Jordan, watched as the final laps of Sunday’s event unfold and blossom.

“It was a really crappy day for about 20 minutes,” Hamlin said.

As late-stage leader and pole sitter Michael McDowell turned up the track and then quickly back down to block the aggressive advances of Brad Keselowski, the day of Hamlin’s employee took quite a precipitous turn. As McDowell’s nose turned toward the wall, he began to a chain reaction collecting car after car, the sea of sheet metal parted, and Reddick took the checkered flag nearly unchallenged.

Hamlin watched it all unfold from Turn 2 trying to be one of the first drivers out of the track. He said he couldn’t see the television at the very end but saw Reddick on the cool down lap.

That’s when that “crappy day” all turned around.

“It’s different for sure. I’m only an hour from behind crashed,” Hamlin said. “You switch over … I know how much work these guys put in each and every day. You’re just happy for them because you know how much work gets put into it because of having to have my hand in every little department of the race team. It’s certainly gratifying.”

If Hamlin wasn’t intertwined enough in the ups and downs of the day, the root of it was one step deeper. The wreck started because six of the Toyota drivers had a strategy to work together, pitting under green in hopes being able to leapfrog the field if a late-stage caution reared its head. Then disaster struck.

“I thought the lap times, we ran one really, really fast lap,” Hamlin said. “We didn’t need to do any more than we were doing, from my seat. I thought we were going to cycle to the front, no matter what, at that point.”

But they didn’t, as four of the six cars in the pack took damage, with Hamlin, Bubba Wallace and Erik Jones all ending their days. Of the six, though, Reddick and Martin Truex Jr. escaped and eventually found themselves out front, setting up the final-lap heroics.

The victory was Reddick’s first of the season and sixth in his career, all three coming in the past three seasons. Truex, who was collected in that final-lap wreck, finished 11th.

“It was our misfortune,” Hamlin said, “but it was their fortune that put them out front.”