Denny Hamlin says knee injury won’t derail championship hopes

The timing wasn’t ideal, Denny Hamlin acknowledges, but despite a torn ACL in his right knee he’s adamant it will not affect his performance when the Chase for the Sprint Cup begins next week.

Joe Gibbs Racing made some accommodations within the cockpit to make it easier for Hamlin to drive, including moving the accelerator forward and installing additional padding. He will not miss time and fully expects to challenge for the championship over the course of the 10-race Chase.

“I’m going to drive as fast as the car is going to let me go,” Hamlin said Friday at Richmond International Raceway. “I really don’t feel like this will set us back at all. If anything it just juices you up that extra 10 percent to make sure that you do your job 110 percent.

“I think that no doubt there’s nothing or no injury that’s going to keep me from what I want to do at the end of the year.”

Hamlin injured his knee playing basketball Tuesday. He initially tweaked it when he drove to the hoop and made a layup to tie the game with five seconds remaining, pushing the contest to overtime. But instead of removing himself Hamlin continued playing, which he says put greater strain on his knee and led to him blowing out his ACL.

The 34-year-old driver suffered a similar injury to his left knee playing basketball in Jan. 2010. He initially held off undergoing surgery before doing so during an off-week in April and did not miss any races. Hamlin won just prior to the surgery and three weeks afterward.

Hamlin considered missing Richmond -- the regular season finale -- to undergo right knee surgery, then coming back for the Sept. 20 Chase opener at Chicagoland Speedway. But with his knee not affecting him while driving and wary of any potential complications, he elected to push surgery until the offseason.

“Why skip a week if I’m going to end up being the same anyway?” Hamlin said. “There just isn’t a benefit to do it right now, especially you don’t know how you’re going to react recovery-wise. ... You just don’t know how your body will react to the second (surgery) so I think it was safer for us to just let it go.”

Hamlin credited team owner Joe Gibbs for not putting any restrictions on activities outside of racing. An avid basketball player, Hamlin prefers hoops to stay in shape over engaging in other forms of exercise.

“I can do anything I want, just don’t break the law,” Hamlin said. “There’s really no provisions or anything like that. I think Joe does a good job of letting us be whoever we want to be outside the race car.

“(Basketball) is what I do to relieve stress and I have fun doing it and it’s the only way I’ll go for a run. There’s no way I could put on running shoes and go out for a five-mile run, but put a ball in my hand and I’ll go for days or until I break something.”

Driving hurt is something Hamlin has grown accustomed to throughout his career.

In addition to the 2010 knee injury, Hamlin suffered a compression fracture of his lower back in a 2013 last-lap crash involving Joey Logano. That injury sidelined Hamlin four races and cost him a Chase spot. A year ago he missed a race when a piece of metal was found in his eye and this season he removed himself from the spring Bristol race due to neck spasms.

“My activities really aren’t that dangerous that I do,” Hamlin said. “It just seems like I have had some freak accidents over the last few years that’s gotten us, but I don’t think there’s been anything that’s kept us from being competitive on the race track.”