Dale Jr.: ‘One Evaluation at a Time’ in Recovery, Return to Competition

Ron Lemasters | JR Motorsports | 8/5/2016

Axalta Dale Jr. News Sprint Cup Series Watkins Glen

Dale Earnhardt Jr. made his first public comments just prior to NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice at Watkins Glen, and said that he intended to be back in the car as soon as his concussion-like symptoms clear and his doctors cleared him to compete.

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Aug. 5, 2016) –  It is not clear when Dale Earnhardt Jr. will get back in the No. 88 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, but one thing at least is certain: it can’t come soon enough for the 13-time Most Popular Driver.

Earnhardt Jr. made his first public comments just prior to NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice at Watkins Glen International, and said that he intended to be back in the car as soon as his concussion-like symptoms clear and his doctors cleared him to compete.

“Our intentions are to get cleared and get back to racing,” he said. “We’re just taking it one evaluation at the time. It’s frustrating to have to do it that way but that’s the process. We hope and expect when we go back to the next evaluation we’ll be symptom-free and see a timeline develop.”

Asked if he had ever considered ending his career as a driver, Earnhardt was matter-of-fact.

“I have every intention of honoring my current contract,” he said. “I sat down with Rick (Hendrick) before this happened a couple of months ago to talk about an extension. That’s the direction we are going. As soon as I can get healthy and get confident in how I feel and feel like I can drive a car and be great driving it, then I want to drive, I want to race. I miss the competition. I miss being here. I miss the people. As Rick likes to say, we’ve got unfinished business.

“I’m not ready to stop racing. I’m not ready to quit. It’s a slower process. I wish it wasn’t. I don’t know how long it’s going to take. I’m not going to go into the car until the doctors clear me. This is not my decision. I trust what my doctors are telling me. When they say I’m good to go I believe them.’’

Rather than concentrating on when he can race again, Earnhardt Jr. is focusing on getting better and taking the smart route back to the track, not the quick one.

“The point right now is to get healthy, to get right,” he said. “I’m not thinking about the ‘what ifs.’ We went into this with the intention of getting back into the car. I think that’s a possibility and so do my doctors. Whenever that happens, it happens. It’s frustrating that I’ve had to miss so many races.”

While he has not been cleared to race, he’s clearly been thinking about getting his racing legs back, so to speak, before returning to the cockpit.

“I don’t know what the doctor would choose there, whether he wants you to be symptom-free before you get back in the car, or whether he would want you to be symptom-free for a week, two weeks…we haven’t really talked about that,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I personally would like to get into a race car and drive it on a closed course somewhere, whether it’s one of my late models or whether NASCAR would let me go to Gresham or somewhere. I think I should do that before I try a whole race weekend.”

But that’s a bit further down the road.

“I just want to get better,” Earnhardt Jr. admitted. “Nothing else is a priority except for getting the symptoms to clear up and get back to feeling like yourself. That’s all I’m thinking about. The process isn’t as fast as you would like it to be. I talk to my doctor every other day, sometimes for an hour or two about the psychological side of it because it can become very frustrating and being a race car driver, we don’t have a lot of patience to begin with.”

His doctors are enthusiastic about his full recovery, he said.

“My doctors feel great about the opportunity that I will not only be healthy again, but they can actually make my brain stronger to be able to withstand these common events,” he said. “The event that I had at Michigan that they tied this concussion to I shouldn’t have had a concussion from. I should be able to get through events like that without having any issues. So they’re not only working to get me healed up but working to make it to where I can compete and go through events like that without any concern.”

Check out all that Dale Jr. had to say here on Said Junior at Dirty Mo Radio.