NASCAR driver comments after shoulder surgery
Denny Hamlin is set to enter his 20th season in the NASCAR Cup Series. But, will he make the opening exhibition race for 2024?
Hamlin recently completed surgery on his shoulder. On Thursday, he spoke on the surgery and his expectations for his return.
Denny Hamlin has undergone surgery
On February 4th, the 2024 NASCAR season is set to begin. The season opens with an exhibition event at the LA Coliseum.
Will Denny Hamlin be ready by early February?
Denny Hamlin comments after surgery
“What I’m optimistic of is that I’ve got a great team that’s going to work on me to get this better and certainly, I find it hard to believe that I’ll have more pain in late January than what I did in the end of October and November,” Denny Hamlin said.
“Getting through those last five races was really, really hard so I think if I can get through that, then certainly I’ll be able to challenge myself enough to get back in a car sooner than what they’d want me to.”
Hamlin ran the final races of the 2023 playoffs in pain.
“It was painful, there were many times when they asked me to turn on a switch and I couldn’t reach it, I couldn’t touch it,” Hamlin said. “We were certainly up against the odds, but one thing is I didn’t want to use it as any kind of excuse for not making the Final Four.”
“I think really our performance was as good as it possibly could be on track. I did everything I could to succeed, we just didn’t get it done for whatever reason. Certainly, I didn’t want that to be any excuse of why we didn’t perform well.
“It’s just one of those things I grew up being a right-arm driver and during the Playoffs had to switch to holding the wheel with the left hand, so it was certainly different.”
The opening race of the regular season is the Daytona 500. The qualifying races for that event take place on February 15th, nearly two weeks after The Clash.
Chase Elliott had undergone another surgery
