Denny Hamlin knee injury not a big concern to J.D. Gibbs, ACL experts
Denny Hamlin's knee injury shouldn't hamper his ability to drive his race car, doctors say. // Archives, NASCAR Illustrated
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin shouldn’t have too much trouble driving a race car despite a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, according to JGR President J.D. Gibbs and doctors familiar with ACL injuries.
Hamlin, 29, uses his left foot to brake as well as to control the clutch in his No. 11 Toyota.
“In essence, it’s not that big a deal given what drivers normally have to do in the car,” said ESPN analyst Dr. Jerry Punch, a former emergency-room physician. “No two people are the same in terms of how much instability they have when they tear an ACL. Typically, somebody that is Denny’s age, young and in great physical shape, can rehab that knee without having it operated on.”
The ACL keeps the lower part of the leg from moving forward when a person stops running. Starting and stopping quickly would make the knee feel unstable. It doesn’t have to do with rotation or side-to-side movement, Punch said, and the pedals could be adjusted to make it more comfortable.
Gibbs said he’s not worried.
“He’ll be fine. The hardest part’s going to be just the stuff he loves to do, play basketball and other sports. He’ll not be able to do that,” Gibbs said. “He’ll be fine; he’ll just be frustrated.”
Reconstructive ACL surgery requires six to 10 weeks of immobility, and that’s why Hamlin plans to wait until after the season is over, Punch said. He could have arthroscopic surgery to clean out the injured area and that would require only 10 days of being off his feet, but Gibbs said that no surgery is planned.
“When you have an ACL tear, it impacts running, jumping, pivoting sports more than NASCAR drivers,” said Dr. James Fleischli, an orthopedic surgeon at OrthoCarolina who treats athletes at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and the Charlotte Knights minor-league baseball team. “It’s very reasonable, as long as it’s an isolated tear and there’s no other injuries to the structures within the knee joint like the meniscus or other ligaments, to delay surgery to repair the ACL until after the NASCAR season is over.
“You can do that safely, and he shouldn’t have any problems driving.”
If Hamlin is involved in a crash and has his left foot on the brake pedal, other parts of his knee could be compromised because he doesn’t have an ACL, Punch said, but Fleischli said that shouldn’t be a major concern.
“They’re so well-protected in the cars, and typically the … injury in a car crash is more of an injury that would impact other structures in the knee joint,” Fleischli said.
Although he might be OK in the race car, Hamlin will have to be mindful of his limitations. If he tried to jump over the pit wall, for instance, he’d feel his knee give out.
“If he needs to chase somebody down, he may notice it, and you’ve got to remember that Brad Keselowski is going to run the full Cup schedule,” Punch said jokingly, referring to the Keselowski-Hamlin rivalry. “But I’ve got to imagine that since all these drivers have so many people around them to help them, somebody could hold Brad until he gets there. … It might make him work on his upper-body strength.
“He can’t run from anybody. He’d have to stand and fight.”
Swimming or using a reclined bicycle could help with his conditioning, and he might be able to jog on a treadmill during his rehabilitation.
“If he was a basketball player or a football player, he’d be out,” Gibbs said. “The reality now is he can do what he’s doing now [in the race car] and make that work. Once the swelling comes down a little bit, he’ll just have to make sure what he can do to replace the stuff he had been doing physically and make sure he takes care of it and be patient with it.”
Punch said this is one of the reasons why drivers need to be in good physical shape.
“If it were a 40-some-year-old driver, it’s harder to come back, even if you’re in good shape because the tissues don’t heal [as fast] and it’s harder to get supporting structures to provide the support you need,” Punch said.
Hamlin won’t be prohibited from playing basketball once he gets back to full health, Gibbs said.
“Obviously, we don’t want you doing Supercross [motorcycle] events and stuff,” Gibbs said. “The Cup stuff is dangerous in itself. And we have a Nationwide team, and that’s not real safe if you want to put it in perspective.
“We want you to be smart, don’t put yourself in bad situations and, for the most part, our guys do a pretty good job of that.”
