Denny Hamlin reveals recovery from surgery will take 'longer than anticipated'

Last week it was announced that Denny Hamlin got surgery on his shoulder to repair damage from the season. Well, it isn’t going to be as simple of a recovery as he and his NASCAR team expected. Hamlin is going to be in a sling for the foreseeable future.

In Nashville for NASCAR’s Champion’s Week, Denny Hamlin talked about his surgery. He’s had bone spur issues in his shoulder before, it is a genetic issue and not usually a big deal.

However, there was damage done during the Las Vegas race week. Then Hamlin continued to race and did more damage. So, the surgery was and the recovery will be more difficult than expected.

Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports shared a video of Hamlin explaining what the issue is with his right shoulder.

“It wasn’t planned to be how bad it ended up being but something I planned to fix in the offseason.”

“Yeah I had a – three years ago I did a left shoulder bone spur and this was supposed to be just a bone spur as well, but I knew I messed it up pretty bad Vegas week,” Hamlin explained. “And since I continued to race the rest of the season after Vegas, it just continued to do more damage and now certainly going to be a little bit longer than what was anticipated.”

It comes from his bone spur, and some rough incidents to end the season.

“No, this is a genetics thing where the bone just grew a little bit too long. Then my decision to keep agitating it and whatever happened during Vegas week, I popped some tendons that week. Then the following week had another incident. Just trying to race on it was just not good.”

Denny Hamlin explains that his shoulder surgery was a little bit more intensive than initially planned. Sounds like he will be in a sling throughout the offseason. pic.twitter.com/zGylmGfuVy

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) November 30, 2023

How long will Denny Hamlin be out?

During his conversations with the media, Denny Hamlin didn’t reveal a timeline. So, we know it will be longer than expected, but not much else. Right now, I would assume he will be back for the Daytona 500, but until we hear something definitive, that’s speculation.

The end of the year didn’t go to Hamlin’s liking. He felt this was his season to win a championship, and he fell short. So, let’s look at the end of the year and the injury timeline to see how it affected Hamlin.

According to the JGR veteran, he injured his shoulder at Las Vegas. Vegas has two races, early season and late season in the playoffs. When Hamlin says “I continued to race the rest of the season after Vegas,” it leads me to believe it happened in March.

To race the season with a hurt shoulder is impressive. These NASCAR drivers are athletes and they race through injury all of the time. Chase Elliott also had shoulder surgery in the offseason, so a couple of drivers have taken the time to heal up.