“Are You Crazy?” Dale Earnhardt Jr Recalls Rick Hendrick’s 6-Word Warning After His World Turned “Upside Down” in 2016

Ever since NASCAR rolled out the Next Gen cars last year, drivers have been raising concerns regarding their safety within the cars. Last season, Alex Bowman had to miss out on the race at the Talladega Speedway as he exhibited concussion-like symptoms after hitting the outside wall at the Texas Motor Speedway. In the ongoing season, Noah Gragson also had to miss a race at Sonoma Raceway after showing concussion-like symptoms. The community has already witnessed Kurt Busch‘s career-ending injury. 

It goes without saying that concussions can often turn out to be debilitating in nature. But this issue is often regarded as a customary part of the racers’ profession. And Dale Earnhardt Jr’s narration of his suffering from consecutive symptoms reinforces the gravity of the fact, and how it has been overlooked by the authorities in the past.

Dale Earnhardt Jr spills on the adverse effect that concussions had on his daily life

It often takes months if not years, to get cured completely from the manifestation of the concussions. And its devastating effects can surely be understood from Dale Jr’s narration after he suffered one such horrific effect, back in his racing days. 

In his interview with Graham Bensinger, Junior reminisced about the dark days after surviving the crash on the tracks. He shared, “The balance was dreadful. Every time you stood up or got up you felt like you knew you were going to get dizzy you have to hang on to something and gonna make you sick on your stomach.”

He added, “Driving down the road, me trying to look at the road sign, but my eyes just bounced and if I was to look over at cars coming at us my eyes couldn’t stay still and look at an object and watch the object go by and watch the road sign go by. My eyes were just all over the place. And so your eyes are tethered together when you look left, they both go left, but my eyes didn’t work together.”

And to everybody’s horror, the symptoms stayed for 4 months!

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The co-owner of JR Motorsports exclaims how he ended up visiting the doctor

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But things took a bad turn during the 2016 season, Dale Jr suffered a series of crashes and the compounded symptoms of the impacts seemed to hit the driver all at once. He asserted that even the minutest of crashes seem to have an adverse effect on his health. These effects seemed to return even weeks later, with the slightest of contact on the tracks.

The JR Motorsports co-owner also exclaimed how he believed that these indications would be apparent within a day’s time. However, for the driver, the manifestations seem to make their presence after three weeks. He also shared to his, “I talked to my crew chief and said I am feeling these weird symptoms and I don’t know what this means for this weekend if I am getting worse and worse. I don’t know if I can drive a car feeling this dizzy.”

“I call my boss Rick Hendrick and said hey I got this happening and I am gonna try to get my buddy ready in case I can’t drive. And my boss is like are you crazy? Why are you not already not talking to the doctor? Get your a** to the doctor and figure out what the hell this is.”

With those serious symptoms the former Cup Series driver how the world would go upside down, with the slightest movement of his head. 

The reiterating of the dreadful incidents from the past amplifies the fact, of how grave the issues of concussions can be. With the new modified models of Next-Gen cars set out to roll out at Atlanta Motor Speedway, it is to be seen whether the cars keep up to promises regarding the safety of the drivers.

Read More: “Our First Race Wasn’t Great” – Josh Berry’s Admission Leads Dale Earnhardt Jr To Applaud Jeff Gordon And Rick Hendrick As Chase Elliott’s Star Replacement Begins His Cup Series Career