NASCAR’s fresh star Trevor Bayne lights up Phoenix despite crash

The Trevor Bayne bandwagon arrived here Friday with the 20-year-old Daytona 500 winner trying to regain his racing bearings after a whirlwind week that included a phone call from Vice President Joe Biden, meeting actress Pamela Anderson and appearing on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show.

The response to his upset win has “definitely been way more than I expected,” Bayne said Friday ahead of the next NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway on Sunday. “It’s just been a really, really cool week and a humbling experience.”

Bayne mainly drives in NASCAR’s second-tier Nationwide Series while running a limited Cup schedule that began with the Daytona 500 — only the second Cup start for the Knoxville, Tenn., native.

So he’s racing in both the Nationwide race here Saturday and in the Cup race Sunday, and Bayne tried to temper expectations.

“This weekend is our third race ever in Cup, and we need to remember that,” he said. “If we finish 15th or 20th, we’ve got to be excited about that.”

After posting the second-fastest speed in the first Nationwide practice Friday, Bayne then was practicing for the Cup race when his No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford appeared to have a sudden mechanical problem that sent the car hard into the outside wall. Bayne wasn’t hurt.

NASCAR moves to Las Vegas Motor Speedway next weekend, but Bayne isn’t old enough to gamble. “Obviously, I can’t go to a casino, and I don’t even know I would if I could,” he said. Even so, “I’m pumped to go there. I love the track.”

IndyCar challenge

Speaking of Las Vegas, some NASCAR drivers with open-wheel racing experience were asked whether they were interested in a challenge announced this week by the Izod IndyCar Series, which will pay $5 million to a non-IndyCar professional race car driver who wins the series’ finale Oct. 16 in Las Vegas.

Cup drivers might be able to get to the Las Vegas competition in time because they race the night before at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., but getting IndyCar practice before the race would be another matter.

Juan Pablo Montoya, a former Indianapolis 500 winner and Formula One driver who now drives in the Cup series, said: “It’s just impossible logistics-wise” for him to do it.

“It’s intriguing for a lot of people,” Montoya said, adding that Sam Hornish Jr., a former IndyCar champion driving a limited Nationwide schedule this season, “would be a guy that could do it.” Hornish skipped Saturday’s race and wasn’t available at Phoenix International.

A.J. Allmendinger, another former open-wheel racer now in NASCAR, said “$5 million isn’t anything to shy away from. You can never say no to anything, so we’ll just leave that open.”

Anything else?

Kevin Harvick was asked about the blown engine on his No. 29 Chevrolet that knocked him out of the Daytona 500:

Question: “Did you guys figure out what happened to the engine?”

Harvick: “Yes.”

Question: “What happened?”

Harvick: “It broke.”

james.peltz@latimes.com