Sportsfrog.com

Some of you will take issue with the word “playing.” Sorry, it’s a good headline.

Denny Hamlin, one of the top drivers in Sprint Cup, tore his ACL Friday playing pickup basketball.

And since the season unofficially starts in two weeks, Hamlin will have to wait until around Thanksgiving to have the surgery.

Yikes.

The injury was to Hamlin’s left knee, which is his braking leg, so the circumstances could be worse. The ACL primarily is involved in stabilization during knee flexion and Hamlin shouldn’t be extremely hampered because the angle of a driver’s knee doesn’t change much during the course of a race. Some modifications will probably have to be made, however, to the cockpit of Hamlin’s car to allow him more room to extend his leg.

But where Hamlin is going to feel it most is outside of the car. Getting around for seven months with a torn ACL has to be a chore.

– Denny Hamlin won the rain-delayed Sprint Cup race at Pocono. Hamlin essentially called his shot on Friday in the media center, a bold move considering the bad luck that he’s had since he last won. Heck, at the first Pocono race this year, Hamlin’s transmission broke as he took the green flag. But Hamlin was confident that his grandmother, who passed away last week was going to be riding with him. If you’re inclined to believe things like that, after yesterday’s domination, it’s hard not to agree with Hamlin

– The Busch* Series ran their first race at the Iowa Speedway. The 7/8 mile track produced some really good racing, but because there was some really good racing, there were also a lot of cautions, because after all, this IS the Busch* Series. The track was designed by former driver Rusty Wallace, who served as the race analyst for ESPN. Rusty isn’t the best in the business by any means but he has gotten better. However, Rusty shouldn’t have been on camera Saturday because of his conflict of interest. It’s bad enough that he broadcasts races that involve his son, who drives for his race team, but it was compounded by the fact that Rusty could say nothing even remotely cold about the track. It may be a great facility, and from the looks of it, it is. But the track designer shouldn’t be given a pedestal such as the one Wallace was given Saturday.

–The IndyCar Series officially turned into the Mario Kart Series on Saturday with the introduction of the “Push to Pass” feature that was once a staple in the now-defunct CART series. In an attempt to promote better racing, each car was given 20 12 second 200 RPM boosts via a button on the steering wheel, much like hitting a magic mushroom while racing Mario Kart. While the finish was exciting—Ryan Briscoe won by about ¼ car length over Ed Carpenter—it was more due to the aerodynamic rule changes rather than the magic mushrooms. Hopefully the IRL realizes this and gets rid of the feature at the end of the season.