Dale Earnhardt Jr.: 'Definitely' unable to drive at New Hampshire
Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t second-guessing missing Sunday’s race at New Hampshire.
Junior, who missed the race because of concussion worries, said he would not have been able to drive the car because of the way he was feeling. He made the comments on his Dirty Mo Radio podcast.
“The symptoms that I have are balance and nausea. I’ve struggled with my balance over the last four or five days, and I definitely wouldn’t have been able to drive a race car this weekend,” Earnhardt said on the podcast. “So making the right decision really was out of the question. I made the decision I had to make.”
Junior said he was “kind of plugged in” to the team over the weekend as Alex Bowman filled in for him at New Hampshire. Bowman raced his way into the top 10 before his race was derailed when a flat tire happened thanks to a sheetmetal rub.
“My mind feels real sharp,” Junior said before he described his symptoms that kept him out of the car. I took the ImPACT test which measures thought process, and speed of your thought process, memory and retaining memory and my results matched my baseline which made me feel confident that my brain was pretty sharp and feels good.”
The ImPACT test is used as a guide for concussions and brain function.
Any decision regarding Junior’s status for Indianapolis would be made this week. Hendrick Motorsports has already said Jeff Gordon would replace Earnhardt if Junior was still unable to drive the car.
While Junior drove the previous week’s race at Kentucky, he said he didn’t feel well throughout the weekend. He had crashed at Daytona and Michigan (an especially vicious impact with the outside wall) in the month before Kentucky. By missing the race at New Hampshire, Junior fell from 13th to 15th in the points standings.
Junior isn’t the only driver experiencing concussion worries in NASCAR either. Athenian Motorsports said Monday that John Wes Townley would miss Wednesday night’s Truck Series race at Eldora because of a possible concussion. Townley missed the Truck race at Kentucky after he crashed (and fought with Spencer Gallagher) at Gateway and the team said he was being evaluated for a possible concussion.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
