WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Denny Hamlin disclosed Wednesday that he recently aggravated a shoulder ailment and that he plans to weather the injury as the start of the NASCAR Cup Series season draws near.
Hamlin’s remarks came in a Wednesday afternoon news conference, hours before the snow-plagued Cook Out Clash preseason exhibition was set to begin at Bowman Gray Stadium (6 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The 45-year-old driver‘s health update comes after he experienced both personal tragedy and professional heartbreak in the final two months of last year.
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An elusive first NASCAR Cup Series championship slipped away in the painful closing laps of the Nov. 2 season finale, a race he‘d hoped to win for his father, Dennis, who had been in declining health. Dennis Hamlin died Dec. 28 in a house fire, a blaze that also injured his wife, Mary Lou, Denny’s mother.
Hamlin said he had recently fallen as he sifted through his parents‘ belongings in the debris left by the fire, but added that the pain in his right shoulder, which he‘d had surgically repaired in November 2023, had been lingering before that spill. He noted that the window for potential surgery and months-long recovery for this new injury before the dawn of the Cup Series season has closed.
“So I‘m gonna have to go the rest of the season the way I was before there,” Hamlin said. “I don‘t think that it ever healed properly. Just noticed some issues, really kind of right after the season. It just was nagging me a little bit. Took a little fall at my mom‘s house, going through all the rubble and stuff and just didn‘t feel right. Got it re-scanned and re-tore it again.”
Hamlin said that managing the shoulder ailment could present a challenge through the season, and that he’ll be taking care to keep as healthy as possible until he can potentially have surgery after the 2026 campaign.
“If you can look into a crystal ball, I would think as the year goes on, it just kind of depends on making sure I’m doing the things out of the car, working, keeping the range good, keeping the strength good to kind of get to that November date where I can work on it and get it fixed again,” Hamlin said. “Limiting, honestly, the things I love to do. That’s not going to be a priority during the season, unfortunately. So I’m just going to miss out on a lot of the fun things, but I can’t do some things I like to do, simply because that aggravates it, and it certainly causes the tear to get worse. It’s kind of hanging on. It’s torn, but it’s still got a little few parts and pieces hanging on that I need to keep intact for the full year.”
Hamlin had said days after the disappointment from the season-ending event at Phoenix Raceway that “I don‘t even think about the race car right now. Just yeah, I‘m gonna need some time on this one.” He was back at the track Wednesday with his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team for The Clash, a non-points event he‘s won four times.
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“Like I said, it’s just gonna take a little while to kind of get back in the swing of things,” Hamlin said. “… You know, it certainly has not been an easy offseason by any means, and I’m sure I’m probably in a different headspace than most of the competitors that have been rip-roaring, ready to go racing the last month or so. I’m probably in a different spot than that. I would certainly appreciate a few more months, but I don’t have that. But we’ll just kind of see how it goes.”
The senior-most driver on the circuit says he’s emerged with perspective as he gets set for his 21st full season in NASCAR’s top tour. Hamlin said that his mother, Mary Lou, had been in improving health in the weeks since the fire and that he’s been quick to note his blessings as he navigates the recent round of hardships.
How he reacts, he said, will go a long way toward telling the story of the No. 11 team’s season.
“The easy thing to say is ‘poor me,’ but it’s like, I still have a fantastic life, a great family,” Hamlin said. “A lot of people go through tragedies. I mean, I can’t tell you — while what happened with my family in the offseason was highly publicized, there’s probably tons of those stories of crew members that happen in their family this offseason, that happens to them during the season that no one really knows about. So everyone has their times where they have to go through tough moments, and I think that those are really kind of building moments of your character. It’s how you respond to it.
“I think certainly that this season for me could certainly go one of two ways, and I think there’s not much of a middle road. It’s going to go really one way or really the other way, and it’s up to me which way I decide to turn. So I think that right now, my focus is keeping this thing on the right track and making sure I spend these last couple years accomplishing everything that I want to before my career is over.”