Probably the biggest piece of news to come from the fallout of Sunday's Auto Club 400 is the injury to perennial Chase contender Denny Hamlin.
As it turns out, Hamlin suffered a compression fracture to the L1 vertebra in his lower back as a result of his last-lap incident with heated rival Joey Logano. After the two made contact while racing for the lead, Hamlin slid down the track, hitting the inside retaining wall head-first at a point on the wall where the SAFER barrier was inconceivably absent.
He was able to leave the hospital Monday evening, though reportedly in some pain, leaving his status in a race car very much up in the air for the near future.
Later in the week Hamlin plans to meet with Dr. Jerry Petty of Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates for further evaluation. At that point we'll know more about Hamlin's status.
Until then, his availability is merely a subject of speculation. If he does end up missing time, his likely replacement would be Elliott Sadler, who currently drives full-time for Joe Gibbs Racing's Nationwide Series program.
Missed time would be a major blow to Hamlin's chances at making NASCAR's version of the playoffs, the Chase for the Sprint Cup, which he has never failed to qualify for during his career. Only the top ten drivers are automatically locked into the Chase after 26 races. The two drivers in the 11-20 range with the most wins are also selected as wild cards.
Currently, Hamlin ranks tenth, right on the edge of the Chase cutoff. Missing a race would certainly drop him out, though given the number of races remaining in the still-young season, the overall effect on his 2013 campaign would be arguable.
Of course, if he were to miss successive events, he would all but assuredly lose the 27 point margin he holds on 21st place driver Casey Mears, taking him — for the time being of course — out of contention for a wild card spot. If that's the case, Hamlin will be forced to fight tooth and nail just for a shot at a Chase spot as Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne did last season.
Now, none of that is to say that Hamlin should risk injury for the sake of a potential run at the championship this year. If he can't sit inside of his Toyota with at least a modicum of comfort, there's no reason at all for him to be in the race car. If he isn't cleared by doctors to race, then that becomes a moot point and he won't race anyway.
Safety should certainly be priority number one, as it was for Dale Earnhardt Jr. last fall when he sat out for two races after experiencing recurring symptoms of a concussion.
Hamlin is plenty young and talented enough to have several shots at a Sprint Cup title in his future. Saving one season at the potential expense of his long-term health should not even be a consideration.
There is, sadly, the reputation that drivers who take themselves out of a race car are soft. Lauded are the days when drivers would race with limbs practically falling off, or like in 1984 when Ricky Rudd drove the Daytona 500 with his eyes, swollen from a crash earlier in the week, taped open because he couldn't actually see otherwise.
Those moments showed toughness and bravery. However, to be honest, they also showed stupidity.
There's nothing soft about a driver admitting he can't race at a competent level with a broken back.
Luckily, NASCAR has an off weekend before heading to Martinsville Speedway, a tough little half-mile paperclip that coincidently happens to be one of Hamlin's best tracks. That's leaves a little extra time for Hamlin to heal, and thankfully to get a better reading on the long term effects of his injury.
If he can go, he becomes one of the drivers on the shortlist of favorites to win the race.
At this juncture that's a pretty big "if," and if his ability to drive a race car is still compromised, there are still paths JGR could take. One of those is to have a substitute driver on hand to take Hamlin's place after the race has already begun. For merely taking the green flag he would accrue whatever driver points were earned during the event.
Again, a likely candidate for that substitute would be Sadler. One major issue that arises would be the seat, which is molded to the driver for optimum comfort and safety. Given the two are built quite differently, this becomes an issue, especially given the seat will definitely need to be tailored to Hamlin to account for his injured back and keep it completely stable.
That's why — assuming he isn't completely comfortable inside of a stock car a week from now — the simplest, and safest course of action at this point in the game seems to be to just let Denny Hamlin sit for a couple of races. While doing so would certainly hurt his Chase chances, they wouldn't necessarily be doomed either thanks to wild card. If he wins a couple of races towards the end of the regular season, he will almost certainly be in contention for the wild card, his proximity to the 20th placed driver at the time being the determining factor.
He just needs to maximize the amount if time his body would be allowed to heal without enduring the stress of driving a race car. It would be the healthiest thing to do.
And, therefore, the most intelligent.
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