Earnhardt gladly makes return
Crash leads to early exit, but driver has no symptoms of concussion recurrence
Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s return to NASCAR didn’t last as long in the Daytona 500 as Junior Nation had hoped it would.
That doesn’t mean his mid- race exit Sunday, initiated by a flat tire on Kyle Busch’s car, was a total loss for Earnhardt, who missed the second half of last season’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series with a concussion.
“That wasn’t that hard of a lick, but it’s good to come out of something like that feeling good,” Earnhardt said.
The right side of Earnhardt’s car briefly went up and over Busch’s Toyota. When the 17minute red flag was lifted, he made his way to the garage. Under a new NASCAR rule, any car that goes to the garage for repairs incurred in a crash is out of the race.
That also meant, under another NASCAR rule change, Earnhardt would have to be evaluated at the infield care center.
But Earnhardt did his own self-assessment when he pulled off the track, something he said he learned while he recovering last season.
“You sort of bring your finger to your nose,” Earnhardt said as he motioned his index finger toward his face. “It needs to say ‘one.’
“If it splits (and there’s double vision) way out here, you have problems. It’s something I can do anytime I need to, but we got the opportunity to get into the infield care center, and they were very thorough.”
Earnhardt praised NASCAR for aiding his efforts to make his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet safer, changes that in- cluded lessening the space his head could travel in a collision.
“With the (older) headrest, when you fly into the wall, it’s like getting hit with a baseball bat,” Earnhardt said. “That car will take a few (G-forces), and if you have a lot of distance there, you can double the G’s. We talked to NASCAR over the winter, and they helped me understand how to better withstand those wrecks. We have (the headrest) tight on both sides.”
Earnhardt won this race in 2004 and 2014.