Denny Hamlin made his first lengthy public comments yesterday since blowing out his knee playing basketball and insisted he should be just fine inside the race car.
The knee is painful now, he said, but doctors have told him he should be walking without a limp by the California race (the week after the Daytona 500). He must wear a custom-made brace every day to give his knee support, but said he can only be on his feet for a couple hours before it becomes unstable.
During a recent trip to the Winter X-Games in Colorado, he said, "It gave out, popped twice actually and I fell down just standing up, because I had been on my feet too long."
Hamlin said he’s done some heavy braking inside the car with no problem. His knee is at 80 percent of its strength, he said, "but that’s probably stronger than most guys’ 100 percent."
More than his performance on the track, Hamlin’s biggest concern will be finding a way to replace basketball as his primary form of exercise and entertainment (he will postpone surgery on the knee until after this season, then endure a lengthy rehab).
"What bothers me most about it is I’m not able to do the things I love to do," he said. "Everybody has a hobby outside racing, and if you told them they couldn’t do that for a year and a half, it’d bother them. And for me, it’s something I took up and I love to do."
Hamlin said doctors made him a brace to wear in the car, but he likely won’t wear it because it’s important to have full movement in case he needs to evacuate the vehicle quickly and it may not fit in the small cockpit.
As for whether it will affect his chances of taking down Jimmie Johnson? Hamlin said talent-wise, he feels he stacks up to anybody in the garage.
But he said of Johnson, "It seems like he’s always got a leg up, in one sense or another."
Now he has two, thanks to Hamlin’s torn ACL.
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