Almirola out 8-12 weeks
NASCAR driver Aric Almirola is expected to miss up to three months with a broken back he suffered during a crash on May 13 at Kansas Speedway. If Almirola were to rush the healing process, he could face paralysis if involved in another wreck.
Aric Almirola celebrated a victory with his family one weekend, and then found himself on a backboard in a helicopter on the way to the hospital just seven days later.
Almirola fractured a vertebra in a crash Saturday night at Kansas Speedway and could miss up to three months of the NASCAR season. The 33-year-old Almirola will heed doctor warnings and not rush back to racing because he has been warned further injury could lead to paralysis.
“Everybody is telling me that with this type of fracture it is eight to 12 weeks, so I’m not happy about that,” Almirola said. “Getting back in a race car two weeks too soon is just going to add two more starts to my start column and the stat book. But if I were to get in another similar accident and not be properly healed, you’re talking about potentially being paralyzed from the belly button down.
“I’m not going to risk that,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of baseball to play with my son, and I’d like to dance with my daughter one day at her wedding. Whenever the doctors clear me, I’ll be ready to get back in a race car.”
It was a wild turn of events for Almirola, who reveled in celebrating an Xfinity Series win at Talladega with his family on May 6. A week later, he was hospitalized overnight in Kansas before flying home to North Carolina to receive another diagnosis.
Almirola said Friday he’d stopped taking painkillers 48 hours before his news conference in order to sound coherent while discussing his injury. It has been a roller coaster of a week, with the Talladega victory underscoring the promise his Richard Petty Motorsports team has shown this season.
“We’ve seen momentum and everything was looking so good and everybody at the team is happy, the morale in the shop is good, everybody just keeps digging harder and working harder because when you see those results it just drives more ambition,” he said. “So to go through Talladega and have such a great weekend there, to win on Saturday and have Janice and the kids in victory lane with me, and then to have a great run on Sunday, and then literally seven days later to be on a helicopter heading for the hospital — there’s nothing that describes it better other than that’s our sport.