|
 |
Denny Hamlin (left)
and Joey Lagano (right) battle in the last few yards at Fontana. Hamlin
finished the race with a hard hit on the wall that left him with a
fractured vertebra. Hamlin will be out of action for six weeks. Photo
by nascar.com
Nascar
Owner of the
No. 22 car says he hopes for speedy recovery
In the days since the accident that left him with a fractured vertebra,
Denny Hamlin has received text messages from both on-track rival Joey
Logano and Roger Penske, the owner of Logano’s No. 22 car. Logano also
addressed Hamlin on Twitter, tweeting "Wish @dennyhamlin a speedy
recovery. Hope he gets back to the track soon. And thanks to all of my
fans for their support."
Hamlin acknowledged the texts he exchanged with Logano in an interview
with The Associated Press. "It didn't go well," Hamlin said. "The
conversation was both short and unproductive."
Contact with Logano on the final lap Sunday sent Hamlin’s car sliding
down into an inside wall not covered by the SAFER barrier, and the Joe
Gibbs Racing driver was airlifted to a Southern California hospital. He
was diagnosed with a compression fracture in his L1 vertebra, and on
Tuesday the team announced that Hamlin would require six weeks to
recover.
“I’ve texted back and forth with him and said that we’re thinking about
him,” Penske told The Associated Press in Humble, Texas, where he and
Logano were both participating in Wednesday’s Shell Houston Open Pro-Am
golf tournament. “Obviously, we’re hoping for a speedy recovery.”
In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, JGR President J.D.
Gibbs said he had not spoken to Logano, but had talked with Penske.
"I’ll probably keep that conversation private, just between the two of
us," Gibbs said. "But obviously, he was concerned for Denny."
Sunday’s incident was the latest chapter in an ongoing feud between the
drivers that included shots exchanged over social media earlier in the
season, and contact a week earlier at the Bristol short track that left
Logano spinning into the wall. The two were battling for the victory on
the final lap at Fontana when they made contact, sending Hamlin’s car
down into the inside wall and allowing third-place runner Kyle Busch to
win the race…
Read the rest of the article at Nascar.com
|
|
|
|
