Denny Hamlin may win Martinsville 500 on Sunday, but then it's knee surgery on Monday....

  Denny Hamlin (L) and crew chief Mike Ford: Pre-season title favorites, now the question is can they just make the playoffs (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   MARTINSVILLE, Va.
   Denny Hamlin and team owner Joe Gibbs have decided not to wait till the end of the season to fix his banged up knee, and they have planned surgery for Monday in Charlotte, by Dr. Patrick Connor of OrthoCarolina (http://bit.ly/9DEdxZ ).
   Hamlin damaged his left knee in January playing basketball, and he's insisted it hasn't hampered his racing.
   However, Hamlin, one of the pre-season favorites to win this season's NASCAR championship, has had a fitful first few weeks to the season, and his best finish in the first five events has been a pair of 19ths, at Las Vegas and Bristol. He's 19th in the Sprint Cup standings, 259 points behind leader Kevin Harvick heading into Sunday's Martinsville Goody's 500, and 86 points off the playoff cut of 12th.
    "We were going to wait until the end of the season, but just decided that wasn't a good idea," Hamlin, one of three race favorites here, where he won last fall and finished second last spring.
   This track is one of the most demanding on legs and feet, with its 3-1/2 hours of gassing-and-braking twice every one of the 500 laps.
   "We were doing some further damage to the knee...and to me it's not something that's worth suffering forever, or having a permanent limp," Hamlin said.
    Gibbs, of course, has spent enough years on the football field to understand knee injuries.
    So Monday – or Tuesday, if rain rakes Martinsville Speedway Sunday – he'll head for the hospital.
    He'll have nearly two weeks to rest up for the next tour stop, at Phoenix Saturday April 10th.
   
   

   Team owner Joe Gibbs certainly understands knee injuries (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
   

    "We'll see where we're at, come Phoenix," Hamlin says. 
    "I'm at least somewhat relieved we're going to go ahead and get it over with, because it is a little bit bothersome."
     And the recovery?
    "It just depends on how your body handles it, and right now he says I'll be able to get in the car at Phoenix....there's no doubt I'll be able to get in it," Hamlin said.
    Of course NASCAR rules require that a driver at least take the green on the track if he is to get any points for that race. That rule has long been controversial, because it forces a driver – no matter how badly injured – to get in the seat and drive to the green flag. And some drivers, in order to keep up in the point standings, have actually had to be lifted into their cars for the race and then gingerly removed – and how much of a safety issue that can be is clear, though NASCAR officials have refused to modify the rule.
    So Hamlin will have to start the Phoenix race in order to get points.
   Now how far he drives, well, that's another story. Casey Mears will be standing by for relief work.
   "Tolerance of pain is the limiting factor," Hamlin says. "I'm not going to do any further damage to it once it (surgery) is done."
    However the issue of how much a safety liability such an injured driver might be to others on the track could be raised....
   
  

  Denny Hamlin isn't the only Gibbs driver off to slow start. So is Kyle Busch (L), here with crew chief Dave Rogers (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
  

  Braking is an issue for Hamlin, because he's a left-footed braker. After the injury Hamlin insisted his braking wouldn't be an issue, though that raised eyebrows.
    After the surgery Hamlin says he'll have to right-foot brake for a while, "which changes things quite a bit," he concedes.
    So Mears will likely do most of the work at Phoenix.
    And just how much pain has Hamlin been living – and driving – with?
    Well, apparently a little more than he's been letting on.
    And he says that NASCAR's drug policy has kept him from taking any pain medication.
   "When I did initially tear my ACL (the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee), the rest of my knee was completely fine," Hamlin said.
    "Now it seems we've now cracked the meniscus...and if that goes, then the knee will completely lock up....
     "There's nothing else around the knee to support it, so I've done further damage.
     "And after Bristol it was as achy as it had ever been and hurt pretty good."
     Bristol is another painful exercise in braking-and-gassing for three hours or so.
    Hamlin says until Bristol he thought it was all getting better.  "I thought 'Hey, this is no problem. It's going to be fine. And I can go until the end of the season.'
     "But I've had a couple 'buckle' moments, where my knee will just give out, and what's caused the further damage."
     By September, when the playoffs begin, he says he expects to be "100 percent." Rehab, he hopes, will start just a couple days after the surgery. And he plans to be on crutches for a while.
     How long Hamlin might need Mears doing relief work is unclear. Texas is the week following Phoenix, and that's one of the most dangerous tracks on the tour.
    Hamlin says he and crew chief Mike Ford plan to do whatever it takes to make the playoffs.
   "Right now it's about damage control, I guess you could say," Hamlin says.
    "We have some good tracks coming up -- Phoenix, Texas, Richmond.
     "I'd like to be good by then.  If we're not, we're going to let Casey take over and do his thing."
     Hamlin's decision comes as there are some questions being raised about not only his slow start but also that of teammate Kyle Busch. The three Gibbs drivers, Hamlin, Busch and Joey Logano, altogether have only three top-10s out of a possible 15.
     Another issue for Hamlin – rival Jimmie Johnson has won three of the year's first five events, Johnson is favored to win here Sunday, and Johnson will be one of the favorites at Phoenix. And Johnson's dicey victory at Texas in late 2008 is legendary.
      With the resurgence of the Richard Childress operation, there will be a lot of competition for those 12 playoff spots.
    "If we come up short come September, and we don't get it, then it will have to do with a lot of performance over the course of the year, not just  Phoenix and Texas and Richmond," Hamlin insists.
    Still, he realizes he has been struggling the first two months of the season. "But right now I feel like our team is on an up-swing...we're going to come here Sunday and going to plan to win."
    And Hamlin insists he'll be going the distance here.

     
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  Gibbs' newest, Joey Logano, actually has the best record among the Gibbs guys (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)