[media-credit name=”Ed Coombs” align=”alignright” width=”231″]
[/media-credit]Denny Hamlin started having back spasms shortly after the Kentucky race. By the end of the next day it was real tight. “I sat down for dinner and couldn’t get up. I’ve had a history of back spasms now for probably four years and it just flared up again. This is about as bad as it was at its worse in 2008 or so.” Hamlin said.
Hamlin will not be driving the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Nationwide Series car this weekend due to his back issues.
“There are some torn disks and there’s some bulging disks. There’s a lot of different things that’s just happened over time, and it’s just gotten progressively worse.” Hamlin said.
Clint Bowyer will be taking over the driving duties this weekend for the Nationwide Series race.
“We’re looking forward to working with Clint and appreciate his willingness to step behind the wheel for us on such short notice.” said J.D. Gibbs, president of JGR.
Hamlin did not practice in either of the two practice session that were held on Thursday for Sprint Cup Series race on Saturday night.
“Lucky that we are at Daytona in the sense of as important as practices are for the Cup Series, at this track they’re not as important. Basically, any other race track, I definitely would be on track at this point, but I’ve made such decent to good progress through this week, you don’t want to give that up by getting in a wreck and then jeopardizing being able to start the Cup race. We decided to sit everything out until I’m absolutely needed and we’ll take it from there.” Hamlin said.
Hamlin does plan on qualifying the No. 11 on Friday. He rolls out 12th.
