Hamlin Cleared for Talladega...Sort Of

From staff and wire service reports

CHARLOTTE -- Denny Hamlin, if the Good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise, will be back in the game this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway.

NASCAR and his doctors cleared him for competition yesterday, though he will ride around and give way to relief driver Brian Vickers at the first opportunity.

Hamlin let the world in on the news with a couple of Tweets, the first a simple smiley face and the second, “Don’t call it a comeback –LL Cool J.” 

Joe Gibbs Racing team members said they would craft the specific logistics at the track today.

Hamlin was ecstatic.

"They all came to the conclusion they were happy with me starting Talladega and getting out when it's a safe time to get out,'' Hamlin told David Newton at ESPN.COM. "So ... we'll start our process at Talladega and then rescan again and try to go to Darlington."

By starting, Hamlin earns all the points the car gets for its finish, and it's high time. He's fallen to 28th in the points, 71 out of the top 20, and that's where he has to be to even have a shot at making the Chase as a wild-card.

Of course, he has to win a couple of races first.

Hamlin said at RIR he doesn't anticipate problems making a quick driver change, which at Talladega is fairly simple because of the track's 2.66-mile distance.

"I could do it pretty easy,'' he said. "Really, I am physically capable of doing the same things other than running. I just can't do that yet. Getting up and down I can do just as easy as I could before the injury. I really only had about a week and a half of severe pain from the actual spine itself.''

By starting Talladega, Hamlin will be one week ahead of the original prognosis that had him missing six races. He still has to have another scan on his spine next week and be cleared to drive at Darlington before making a full return.

Hamlin said he will consider having surgery during the offseason to repair any damage from this injury and other back issues he's had over the past few years. If not cleared for Darlington he said there could come a point when he has to consider surgery during the season.

"Obviously, if it goes past Darlington, our chances are crushed even harder,'' he said of making the Chase. "Eventually, you have to have a shutdown point of not going out there and racing for nothing at a point.

"A recovery on the kind of surgery that I would like to have is about a month-and-a-half or so. I could potentially come back maybe for the tail end of the year. It wouldn't be a season-ending.''