Hamlin shows grit, will to win in victory

Last year Jimmie Johnson won the AP’s Male Athlete of the Year award, becoming the first NASCAR driver to do so. The nation’s second most popular sport faced another senseless attack from fans of more “traditional” sports, who still feel that NASCAR drivers aren’t athletes.

In January, Joe Gibbs Racing star Denny Hamlin announced via his Twitter page that he had injured his knee playing basketball with some friends. After tests, Hamlin found out that he had torn his ACL in his left knee, but didn’t feel it was necessary to have surgery until after the season.

That was until this past week where he decided to schedule surgery for Monday, one day after the Martinsville race. At least that was the plan. Rain forced the Goody’s Fast Relief 500 to Monday afternoon, and Hamlin had to push back his surgery.

In the past eight races on NASCAR’s shortest track the aforementioned Johnson and Hamlin have dominated the field. And 495 laps into the 500 lap event on Monday it looked like Hamlin had the field covered once again.

Jeff Burton had a tire issue and eventually slammed the wall, bringing out a caution. Mike Ford, Hamlin’s crew chief decided to bring his driver, who was leading the race in for four fresh Goodyear tires, a move that many, myself included, thought was a fatal move.

“In this series, that is the hardest decision to make,” Ford said. “Inside of 10 [laps remaining], what do you do? The leader, you can bet that his shot to win the race goes both ways, so everyone else does the opposite of what he does.”

Team president J.D. Gibbs said, “I told Mike, for the record, that I never doubted him. Off the record, up on the pit box, I was cussing him.”

So were plenty of FedEx racing fans I’m sure. But, in the end, Hamlin made a serious charge to win it, passing cars like a madman. On the final restart he started on the outside of row two behind Ryan Newman.

Hamlin forced his way into the middle of Matt Kenseth and Jeff Gordon in turns one and two, and made it a three way battle for the lead. Kenseth shot through turn three and Hamlin ran away with the win, towing behind him his teammate Joey Logano. Gordon ended up third.

It was an exciting finish, and Hamlin’s surgery was pushed back to Wednesday. “This is definitely a good alternative,” he told reporters with a smile on his face.

Even with a torn ACL, Hamlin fought through the field to win his first race of 2010. The next time someone says NASCAR drivers aren’t athletes, I propose we put on the tape of Denny Hamlin’s race winning moves in Martinsville.

Even Jimmie Johnson won’t disagree with that.