Denny Hamlin doesn't rule out missing Busch Light Clash after surgery

Right now, Denny Hamlin is in a sling. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver just had shoulder surgery, and it’s not going to heal soon. What started out as a bone spur, turned into a more serious injury this NASCAR season. Now, Hamlin is facing a deadline with 2024 around the corner.

Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott have had shoulder surgery this offseason. However, it seems like Hamlin is going to be healing up a lot longer than expected. Hamlin talked to media in Nashville this week and explained his recovery would be “longer than anticipated.”

The shoulder surgery was necessary. Hamlin raced through a ton of pain from March to November. And, he isn’t going to commit to racing the Busch Light Clash.

This is how Hamlin responded when asked by the media.

“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,” 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.”

After a rather disappointing end to the season, Hamlin still finished fifth overall. This entire year, he kept the injury hush as he didn’t want to make excuses. It’s clear that it likely played a factor in his 2023 season.

Denny Hamlin says it was ‘painful’ to race through

Despite being hurt, we didn’t hear anything about this during the season. Denny Hamlin was tough and raced through the pain. No one would have blamed him for getting surgery during the season, athletes have to do things like that all of the time.

However, racers are a little different. Sometimes, you just get in the car and go. Hamlin felt this season was going to be a special one, and he kept racing. Pushed the surgery to the offseason. Even if it hurt.

“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.”

Three wins and a fifth-place finish in the standings, not bad for Denny Hamlin considering his injury. Maybe fully healed up, he will be able to get another win or two.