Austin Dillon Reflects on Recovering from the COVID-19 Virus and Missing Daytona

Last week, NASCAR got hit with its second wave of COVID-19 infections among drivers. After Jimmie Johnson missed a race due to a positive test, Austin Dillon was next in line to suffer the same fate.

Recently, he spoke to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio about missing the Daytona race due to the COVID-19 apprehensions.

He admitted that after the Michigan race; he returned home as always, but didn’t notice anything wrong with his health. However, on the Monday after the race, he reported feeling sore but dismissed it.

Dillon was under the impression that it was mostly because of the strain of going through hectic double-headers.

He said, “It ended up not being the case, I couldn’t shake not being tired and not feeling good. I started getting head pressure, Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty much no fun.

“Started to get a little better, got tested and the test came back positive and kept us out of the Daytona road course.”

What else did Austin Dillon say?

He praised Kaz Grala, the man who raced in his stead while he observed the period of self-isolation. Austin declared that the driver had done a good job, as did the rest of the team.

He later admitted to feeling a lot better and managed to turn in two negative tests. From there on out, he started off on the process of recuperation.

Austin Dillon also confessed that he did not like being stuck in quarantine because he was away from his wife and child. However, he is proud of how he handled the situation. Dillon admitted that watching someone else drive the car was not a nice feeling.

Grala has apparently raced on road courses on a fair number of occasions, particularly in the 24hr endurance races. Therefore, his experience really helped the team out as far as collating valuable data regarding road courses was concerned.

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