WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – As his crew chief, Mike Wheeler, put it after Sunday’s Cheez-It 355 at the Glen, Denny Hamlin wouldn’t have driven his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota if the schedule simply called for a practice session.
But since Sunday was a race day, Hamlin was in the car, overcoming persistent pain to win his first road course event at the 2.45-mile Watkins Glen International track.
Hamlin, who has had disc problems exacerbated by a hard wreck at Auto Club Speedway (Fontana, Calif.) in 2013, had no explanation for the onset of the back pain on Sunday morning. He woke up, and it was there.
“I don’t know what causes it,” Hamlin said. “It just happens every now and then. It’s never happened on a race day, for sure. Usually I’m in the car, and things get looser as the weekend goes on… But just today, you know, slept wrong – something. Woke up and knew I was in pretty big trouble. We worked on it all day to try to make it better. We really didn’t make it much better.
“No doubt, if it was Friday or Saturday, no question I wouldn’t have turned one lap today. It was by far the worst conditions I’ve ever had to drive in, over the knees (Hamlin has had surgery on both), anything else. This was by far the worst pain wise I’ve had to go through.”
It didn’t help that the race had two stoppages for a total of 30 minutes. As Hamlin sat in his motionless No. 11 Toyota, he suffered.
“It didn’t get any better throughout the day,” Hamlin said. “Trust me, I’m sitting there, even though I’m joyed that we’re leading the race, I was thinking under the red flag, ‘Let’s get this over with so I can get out of this car.’
“I don’t know why it did it today. But I’ll just continue to go to work on it and try to get in the gym and try to make things a little bit better overall. I’ve missed my routine because I’ve had to travel over the last few weeks. I kind of got off-sequence of my routine that’s helped my back.
“It will go away. By Tuesday I’ll be back fine again. It’s just a pain right now.”
Taking the checkered flag, however, was enough of a tonic to get Hamlin through a lengthy burnout to celebrate the win.
Source: Reid Spencer / NASCAR Wire Service
