Denny Hamlin Will Have Knee Surgery To Repair Torn ACL

Denny Hamlin said surgery to repair his injured left knee “has to be done” regardless of where he ranked in points, but said he was optimistic that he’d be “100 percent” by the time the Chase rolls around – if he makes it.

Hamlin will have surgery on Monday to repair the torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, which he said has buckled several times and caused the knee to sustain further damage.

He plans to make every start and, if necessary, turn over driving duties to relief driver Casey Mears.

But Hamlin added, “If they can just pry me in that seat, they’ll have a tough time prying me out.”

Hamlin said it would be a relief to finally have the surgery (he injured the knee in January but planned to go the entire season before undergoing the necessary repairs) and to know that every day following the surgery would get better instead of worse.

Having the surgery Monday will allow him to race at Phoenix, he believes, and just “take his lumps” the first week with pain. Hamlin said he hasn’t been on any prescription pain medication because he didn’t want to become reliant on it, per NASCAR’s drug policy.

Are his Chase hopes over? If they are, Hamlin says it won’t be because of the knee injury.

“It’s not going to change our goals,” he said. “If we don’t get in [the Chase], then it has to do with a lot of performance over the year, not just [the first few races after the surgery].”

Denny Hamlin will have knee surgery to repair his torn anterior cruciate ligament on Monday, Joe Gibbs Racing said in a statement Saturday morning.

Hamlin tore the ACL in his left knee playing basketball in January, but had planned to wait until the end of the season to have surgery.

“When we first reviewed the situation, we thought Denny couldn’t do any further damage to his knee if he waited to have surgery, but as the season progressed we determined that the best plan of action was to go ahead and have it repaired,” JGR team president J.D. Gibbs said in a statement. “Hopefully this will take care of the situation and he should get stronger each week.”

The team said Hamlin is expected to race in Phoenix when the Sprint Cup Series schedule resumes in two weeks.

However, this raises some immediate questions:

• Are Hamlin’s Chase hopes over? Hamlin is 19th in points and is without a top-10 finish all season. Having major knee surgery at this point would seem to doom his chances at making the Chase, even if he starts the races to get points each week and turns the wheel over to a relief driver.

• Who will be his backup driver? Recovery from a surgery like this requires intense physical therapy just to restore range of motion in the knee. It’s highly unlikely Hamlin will be able to drive 500-mile races in his condition and will need a relief driver after the races begin. But what driver currently not in the Cup Series is capable of getting the No. 11 team into the Chase? Brad Coleman only has one career Cup start; Matt DiBenedetto is ‘The Future,’ but that future isn’t now. Casey Mears? David Stremme? J.J. Yeley?

• Is this a move geared toward this year or next year? Probably both. It reduces the risk of Hamlin doing further damage to his knee now, but by having the surgery at this point, it gives Hamlin a chance to be fully recovered by the start of next season. Knee surgery like this often takes six-to-eight months' recovery time before athletes in other sports can return.

Denny Hamlin had grand plans to win the 2010 Sprint Cup title and knock off four-time defending champ Jimmie Johnson before suffering a setback by tearing his ACL on Friday.

But how will his knee injury affect him inside the racecar?

“I really don’t know yet,” he said via text on Sunday afternoon. “You're supposed to get this operated on asap but I just can’t.”

Prior to the ACL tear (which he sustained playing basketball), Hamlin was optimistic he could be the one to beat Johnson.

Now, he’s not sure what the consequences of the knee injury and added, “I’m just bummed.”

Before the knee injury, he spoke with reporters on the NASCAR media tour and said he was fired up to take down Johnson.

"I know how much it fuels me up wanting to be the guy who takes him off his chair and [replaces him] on the pedestal," Hamlin said in an interview with reporters last week. "I don’t think anyone else in the garage wants it worse than I do right now."

Hamlin was asked then if he had learned anything about winning championships while watching Johnson. He nodded, and said he had first-hand experience with some lessons.

"He forced me into a wreck at California," Hamlin said of the October race at Auto Club Speedway which took him out of title contention. "Not literally, but just mentally. I knew he had the car to beat and there was no way I was going to beat him unless I outdrove him. And I drove over my head and got in a wreck. So he forced me to make a mistake, and that’s what he’s so good at.

"That’s what champions do – they don’t make mistakes, they make others make mistakes."

But how will Hamlin avoid falling into that trap again?

"Learn from last year," he said. "That’s all you can do. The patience level has just got to go up a little bit more, every single week."

With an expected increase in reliability of his Joe Gibbs Racing cars, Hamlin said he knew “how to win a championship, now it’s just going to be executing it.”

Step No. 1, obviously, involves beating Johnson. That was never going to be easy, but with a bum knee, it’ll be even tougher.