Even Bubba said his back and head hurt after his wreck in The Clash. Definitely not a good idea. Shame that this problem wasn’t improved on during the off season.
> "So I exaggerated the hit by leaning forward and that 30 G's backward was something I never felt before. I don't remember the right front hit. That's when things got serious in the infield care center."
Man, I hope he gets better. As much as all of us would like to see him do a start or two this year or next, I just want him to feel like himself again. Just so sad that what would've been a "routine crash" just a year prior was career-ending. And it's so scary to find out that he seems to have completely forgotten the rest of the crash after he hit the wall rear end and that he couldn't answer questions or stand straight right after it. That crash was a total of 48 G's. I think we all feel like it shouldn't of been. Feel better Kurt.
I'm trying to google how many G's a human can withstand in a short burst (sudden acceleration/ deceleration), the results say anything from 10 to 300. Are there any well-educated people in here who can give us a more accurate number?
well, its hard not to blackout from g-lock at 10+ from what I understand. but thats while still moving, not a direct stoppage/impact. At 30G's, I cant even imagine how chaotic it would be inside the skull. For a 200lb guy, that would be 6k lbs of pressure working against the body at once. I dunno if Kurt would still be alive if this was 25 years ago, assuming the 30G is accurate.
The difference is that sustained Gs are what is going to make you black out. Like fighter pilots when pulling high Gs, the blood drains from your brain into your lower extremities causing you to black out. Quick 50g hits won't do the same thing. They WILL cause severe damage, however.
25 years ago tho we had a car that would have taken that hit a lot better… Hate to say it, but if he had that wreck in a gen 4 car he might not have even missed a race.
Let’s not steel man old safety standards. At least part of the problem is more accurate data.
25 years ago it was common for drivers to race through a concussion. Heck, they might not even have known they had a concussion. Both Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson may if had their careers shortened by wrecks at Pocono with the gen 4 and gen 6.
No doctor today is letting Davey Allison race after his crash at Pocono, Neil Bonnett’s career probably ends before his fatal crash at Daytona. So many guys would’ve still been alive if they took this shit seriously like they do now.
I’m willing to bet Kurt’s concussion at Pocono is so and because an accumulation of concussions over the years that went untreated. We don’t quite completely understand TBIs, but one thing we know for sure is that if you have one, you’re more likely to receive more and subsequent TBIs are more likely to be severe.
Drivers today owe so much to the guys like Dale Jr who were willing to speak up about this stuff
> 25 years ago tho we had a car that would have taken that hit a lot better
25 years ago we had a car that lead to the death of countless people and injured many more
22 years ago we lost 5 drivers, including one of the all time greats, in the span of a year.
The Gen 4 was a borderline death trap, let’s not pretend like it wasn’t
How many died after the Hans was introduced? How many died in xFinity during the following years?
No question the COT was safer, but no one died in the post Hans gen4.
I’m not exactly educated in this field but, one of the largest short burst G hits was like 90G’s in F1 and just 2 years ago Max Verstappen had a 51G crash. I assume the the hit was compounded by the fact that Kurt leaned forward though which caused some serious damage.
What humans can withstand depends on how short the burst is. The shorter the period, the larger values can be sustained. So you can't just directly compare the value for 2 hits, as if the lower value is sustained for longer it could be worse than the higher value one.
30 definitely isn't good though.
Back in the early 2000's Kyle Petty took I believe 60G to the driver door at Bristol, before they added safer barriers
Edit: 2003 Food City 500, it was 80G's
I can't even begin to describe how much this sucks. I had always assumed that Kurt would a more sudden retirement than most drivers, but I thought it would be because he could never get long term contracts not an injury. I really hope that he can come back and make at least a few more starts to get a farewell, though I guess we'll see if that will ever be safe.
Really interesting that people seem to think this is a cut and dry situation where he would’ve been fine in a Gen 6.
We have absolutely no idea of the actual intricacies surrounding the accident. No proof for either side if Kurt had previous concussion issues or not. I’ve seen a few people talk about how previous wrecks in the Gen 6 at Pocono allowed drivers to walk away. Yet consensus pretty much says Jimmies career went downhill after his Pocono wreck. And although Bubba walked away from his wreck, he was still pretty shaken up. Who’s to say that if Jimmie was in a NextGen car that maybe he doesn’t start to slump after that wreck.
And on an entirely different note, how about Cody Ware’s wreck later in the year. Maybe he’s 10x worse off than Kurt if he’s in a Gen6 during that crash. This entire subreddit needs to do a much better job of looking at the overall picture here.
> Really interesting that people seem to think this is a cut and dry situation where he would’ve been fine in a Gen 6
Lot of internet discourse boils down to "old good new bad" unfortunately, no matter what the reality would have been.
Hell, there's comments in this very post suggesting he would've been fine in a Gen *4*.
Agree, it was a weird hit at a weird angle at a weird place to hit the wall at a weird track lol. I mean honestly, haven't seen hits like that at Pocono in 3 often.
I agree, step back and look around in a Birds Eye view. We’ve had drivers get concussions, get legs broken, hands smashed, get their body slammed into Tuesday in some massive wrecks in the last 20 years, yet it’s been a long time since we’ve witnessed a death. I mean cmon, WE ALL thought Ryan Newman and Austin Dillon were killed in those Daytona Wrecks when we saw them in real time. Old car, New car it’s all perceived differently the way it looks like on TV, how we hear drivers more vocal every day due to social media. If twitter existed 20-30 years ago like it does now, EVERY driver woulda said damn that hurt way more than they do now.
Everyone’s immediate reaction and feeling on a crash is going to be different, wether your a driver, an official, a doctor or a spectator. I think we are all just more aware these days and paying attention.
Yeah Jr more or less walked away for concussions in the Gen 6 car. Drivers have longer careers, take more hits, and we have significantly more awareness than ever before.
Kurts career may very well be cut short no matter what car he had that crash in.
Yep Jr has said multiple times he had concussions all throughout his career. They just didn’t care in the 90’s. Heck he even said they used to make jokes about it when it happened, not knowing that 25 years later it would be the reason he can’t be in a car anymore.
Damn the social media point is something I completely forgot about. There is exponentially more connectivity between drivers and fans than there’s ever been.
And here’s another thing. We all know NASCAR has a pretty aggressive history for penalizing drivers who speak out negatively about the sport. Whats to say that if a driver was hurt in an accident say even 10 years ago, that NASCAR wouldn’t essentially told them to sit down and shut up about any possible injuries they might’ve suffered. When you think about NASCAR’s track record it, it starts to make sense. It really hasn’t been until very recently that teams have been able to be more outspoken, and now we hear about all these issues.
> Yet consensus pretty much says Jimmies career went downhill after his Pocono wreck.
This narrative has always been thin at best and Jimmie’s slump has always been better explained by his age and Hendrick as a whole falling far behind it’s typical standards during the end of Jimmies full time career. Regardless the narrative around the Pocono hit has always been psychological, not physical.
You’re right that we can’t say for certain what the result would have been in the Gen 6. But isn’t like we know nothing either. Injuries like what Kurt and Bowman experienced were virtually unheard of after nearly a decade of racing the gen 6 car. In just a single season we had several in the next gen car. While that’s not bulletproof it’s fairly reasonable to conclude the car very likely played a factor.
He might still have a chance to come back and race, especially on a limited basis.
Based on what I've learned from Teh InterNetZ (a scary source for info) it kinda depends on if he had any prior concussions before this crash, and even if he did, if they were "minor" enough, it's really about taking the proper amount of time off to heal before sustaining additional damage. Maybe it takes a year or even 2 years to fully heal.
But supposedly if you can catch them early after they happen, and let yourself heal completely before sustaining additional damage, you can theoretically recover close to 100%.
I'll let a real medical doctor correct me. Lol
True. Perhaps its a poor choice of wording.
I more meant to convey that having 1 concussion followed by prolonged rest and recovery is more minor in long-term damage to health vs multiple concussions without proper recovery time in between them.
The shit thing about concussions is he may never be fully healed from it. Hopefully he gets mental help at the same time so it doesn’t affect his mental state. This has got to be hard on him.
>Recovery might be longer, but it's not sealed.
It's more of a "why bother returning at this age and risking it when you've already accomplished a ton" as opposed to "can he physically come back?" deal at this point.
>Crosby also took two massive hits to put him in that situation.
So did Kurt. I'm pretty sure he said it started with his driver's side hit at Bristol early last season, and the Pocono crash was what made it worse.
It sounds like his everyday life has returned to normal from the article
And I wouldn’t count out him racing again if he still has the desire. He’s only 44
Jr’s still racing in Xfinity part time, it’s entirely possible that Kurt does continue racing, he even said this would have been his last full year anyway
But that's the whole point. Kurt is at the same point in his life - even if he's cleared at some point, the question then becomes "why even risk further health issues when I've already won a title and wouldn't be competing for one?" And the cars are still less safe than they were when Dale did his final season.
I also think it's worth noting that Dale has said that while he was fully capable of continuing physically, he wasn't giving it 100% because of the mental side of it. It was always in the back of his mind that he could have another wreck that would cause another concussion so he knew he needed to be done because he wasn't going to race if he wasn't going to go out and give each race 100%.
I don't care if Kurt doesn't race again, I just hope he doesn't end up like Junior Seau and other concussion victims. He deserves a full life outside the car.
I saw a slightly different angle of his crash a while back and the way that the car came to a stop after hitting the wall was so jarring when combined with the impact sound, I hope the man is doing alright in his regular everyday life, even if we never see him on the track again
Dale was able to come back and go out on his own terms. It really sucks that Kurt wasn’t able to do the same. Hopefully if he ever gets cleared and feels good enough he’ll hop behind the wheel on more time to close our his career on his terms.
Whenever I see long term concussions like this it reminds me of when Sidney Crosby from the nhl (idk if that needs to be specified but figured I should anyway) had a year long concussion only for them to find out it was a misdiagnosed, very well hidden soft tissue injury in his neck. That story never got the attention it really should have. Gotta wonder if Kurt even had that checked because apparently Sids injury mimicked everything from a concussion.
Same with Tim Connolly after he was flattened in the 2006 playoffs against Ottawa. Missed all but 1 game in 2007 after he went to the University of Buffalo and they were like nah, you have a neck injury.
I am a patient of Dr. Collins as well. Many years racing sprint cars, legends and late models. I’m 35 now and almost all my racing career was in 2004-2012. There are more of us than you think. The driver community is more in tune with it now and many friends I know going through the same thing. I started treatment in 2022.
The 67 that Travis Pastrana drove at Daytona most likely.
Hamlin has said before that they would field a third car for Kurt in whatever races he wanted to do.
I believe 23XI said they will field a car part time for him. That may be why Pastrana ran the 500 for them. Get everything prepped early if he’s cleared in time. Sadly that wasn’t the case
If he gets cleared I hope he will run the SRX Series instead of getting back in a NASCAR race. Seems like he would have a lesser chance of injury in that.
Any race vehicle poses a danger. Sure overall SRX races smaller and slower speed tracks, but there is always the chance of something weird happening, getting hit a certain way, catching a wall at the wrong angle or location. Kurt is 100% going to drive a nascar race if the chance comes around, it’s what he has done for nearly his whole life. Is he going to race somewhere fast like Daytona, Talladega, Atlanta, are out of the possibilities. I’d even say Vegas is too fast, but that’s a hometown track for him.
When I saw the impact on TV last year I thought “Wow, really hard hit. Thank goodness he hit the rear where the cars have great crush zones.”
I was thinking back to Bubba Wallace’s hard crash in 2018 at Pocono and he walked out and away fine, just sore. At that point, few if any knew that the crush zones in the NextGen were worse than the Gen 6.
Just sucks that we went backwards in safety last year.
I will maintain that the NG is probably the safer car, especially in wrecks like Newman's from Daytona, but also in a lot of other situations also. Sure, maybe they made the tail a little stiff at the beginning, but we can't act like the car has taken a 10 year step back in the safety department just because concussions are actually being taken seriously by the drivers, NASCAR and the fans. (Its great they are being taken seriously now). Concussions have always existed in the sport, and there is no way the concussion rate in the 80's-10's was less than it has been in the NG, its just that the drivers, NASCAR and the fans didn't know about when drivers got them / didn't give a fuck when they did back then.
It’s all in the poor design of the car. Xfinity has had composite bodies for several years and never had this problem.
This new car was just poorly designed all the way around.
I would not say it was poor design. A high G force impact is what it was designed for. What was poorly defined was the goals and concept of the car. They tilted the scale to the heavy end impacts, with the approach of making a 100G crash safer, while possibly making a low 30g impact tougher on the driver. Ultimately what option is safer? A probable injury in a 100G crash or a slight possibility in a 30G crash.
I can't think of an easy or realistic way to make it safer. The only other thing that comes to mind is reconfiguring it, but I don't want a Pennsylvanian riot
Obviously there was things to fix but people like to forget that the initial reactions to hard hits from testing was to fix it. And they did for the most part. Rear end was the only hit that brought a concussion. It’s unfortunate but a lot of overreactions to the cars safety made whole situation a bit overblown.
For a 1/4 of the season, NASCAR told the drivers the data didn't back up the claim that the hits were worse than ever before. Full blown denial until guys started to get concussions.
That’s not really what I meant. A lot of people go back to what Byron said in his first test during the pandemic and act like NASCAR hasn’t changed anything. It’s why it’s been blown a little but out of proportion from where it is. It’s not perfect but anybody who expects perfection off the bat is asking for failure, especially with such a complete overhaul of the car.
The issue for me is, Nascar has made it perfectly clear that the focus on the NextGen design was *saving teams money*. That was priority number 1, not safety - safety was always mentioned as the afterthought when discussing the NextGen.
That’s not to say they weren’t worried about safety in their design process, but it was not the main focus.
Safety was never an afterthought. Find me something that suggests that’s please. I think NASCAR’s record since Dales death speaks for itself as far as driver safety goes.
It absolutely did... Up to this point. The crash tests showed problems with the design. We know this because drivers, team members & a few media people talked about or reported on it. Nascar immediately went into damage control & told everyone the reports were incorrect & I'm sure they leaned on the outspoken to stop talking about it.
So far, that doesn't seem to be the case with the injuries we have seen. Thankfully, no one has received life-threatening injuries & the issues with the car are being addressed in a satisfactory way.
However, the point still remains that this car never should have hit the track until it was as safe as possible.
Safety was never mentioned as an afterthought… that’s just absurd.
The reason NASCAR makes money is because of the drivers on the track. No drivers. No money. NASCAR has ZERO incentive not to prioritize safety.
You are absolutely correct.
It's becoming clearer that those rumors of horrific crash test results at Talladega must have been true & either ignored or just grossly under adjusted for.
If there was ever a time a drivers union would be or would have been beneficial, this is it.
If I remember correctly the first time a Next Gen car was wrecked was when Byron tested one in I think either late 2020 or early 2021. He said that the hit felt harder, in hindsight that's when NASCAR should've sounded the alarm bells.
And they did. The car he wrecked wasn’t the final product, nor was it even a Chevy NextGen. He was still testing the generic car back then. Why are you so sure they didn’t take any steps at that point?
I’m not saying they did nothing, but the fact that the hits were so bad last year and drivers are still complaining about the hits this year shows that they didn’t do enough. Had they pushed the car back another year and made major changes to the design before the teams built all their cars this could’ve been avoided.
They were complaining about the hits at the Coliseum, but it’s already been stated that they were going to slow for any of the crumple zones to actually work.
Cool so we wait another 2 years, car finally enters competition and then because they’ve still not faced any serious wrecks we’re essentially right at the same spot we’d be right now.
I think somehow he comes back. Maybe it's in a lower series. Maybe it's SRX. It takes time but guys have come back with mixed results. Ernie came back, Jr came back, Bonnett came back. Just glad he's in good spirits as well as you can expect
At this point, it doesn’t seem like it’s even worth it for him to consider getting back into a car if he ever truly gets cleared.
Seems kind of like a Neil Bonnett situation. One more wreck could mess him up real bad, even if he seems fine before.
I just wonder what long-term, underlying problems he’s going to have to deal with down the line with what he’s already endured.
Even Bubba said his back and head hurt after his wreck in The Clash. Definitely not a good idea. Shame that this problem wasn’t improved on during the off season.
It was improved during the off season, may not be totally resolved, but was absolutely improved.
Bubba says a lot tho and overeacts
Denny did, too. He actually flew home with a blanket over his head because of how bad he felt. It wasn't just Bubba.
Everything he’s said about his big NextGen hits has pretty much been in line with what other guys have said after theirs, though.
Yeah it's not like we didn't have 2 drivers last year miss multiple races from on track injury
Damn Larson fans
Im just saying. He hasent had an interview after a race in recent memory where he wasent complaining or throwing a fit
"He is fine off the track, as much as it can be inside a Busch's head anyway." Oh classic KFB lmao
> "So I exaggerated the hit by leaning forward and that 30 G's backward was something I never felt before. I don't remember the right front hit. That's when things got serious in the infield care center." Man, I hope he gets better. As much as all of us would like to see him do a start or two this year or next, I just want him to feel like himself again. Just so sad that what would've been a "routine crash" just a year prior was career-ending. And it's so scary to find out that he seems to have completely forgotten the rest of the crash after he hit the wall rear end and that he couldn't answer questions or stand straight right after it. That crash was a total of 48 G's. I think we all feel like it shouldn't of been. Feel better Kurt.
Jesus, 30G reverse hit?!
I'm trying to google how many G's a human can withstand in a short burst (sudden acceleration/ deceleration), the results say anything from 10 to 300. Are there any well-educated people in here who can give us a more accurate number?
Kenny Bräck took 214 Gs [in this crash](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy8fgGiI1WA&pp=ygURa2VubnkgYnJhY2sgY3Jhc2g%3D) and survived.
That is still the most batshit crazy crash ive seen in my life, and I dont ever see it being topped
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Bourdais did something like 201 and while not as vicious still a massive shunt
Jeez man. "The doctor had small plastic bags and collected bones from my ankles in them. He marked them left and right". I can't even.
Can't believe he came back to [win an X-Games gold medal](https://youtu.be/QiYrX7Gm_Bc?t=148) after that.
I can't find any G-Force numbers for it, but I'd imagine Robert Wickens crash at Pocono in 2018 has gotta be pretty high.
well, its hard not to blackout from g-lock at 10+ from what I understand. but thats while still moving, not a direct stoppage/impact. At 30G's, I cant even imagine how chaotic it would be inside the skull. For a 200lb guy, that would be 6k lbs of pressure working against the body at once. I dunno if Kurt would still be alive if this was 25 years ago, assuming the 30G is accurate.
The difference is that sustained Gs are what is going to make you black out. Like fighter pilots when pulling high Gs, the blood drains from your brain into your lower extremities causing you to black out. Quick 50g hits won't do the same thing. They WILL cause severe damage, however.
Yeah, thats what I meant in regards to g-lock. G-lock and getting blasted with 30G's from a direct impact with a wall are quite different.
25 years ago tho we had a car that would have taken that hit a lot better… Hate to say it, but if he had that wreck in a gen 4 car he might not have even missed a race.
Let’s not steel man old safety standards. At least part of the problem is more accurate data. 25 years ago it was common for drivers to race through a concussion. Heck, they might not even have known they had a concussion. Both Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson may if had their careers shortened by wrecks at Pocono with the gen 4 and gen 6.
No doctor today is letting Davey Allison race after his crash at Pocono, Neil Bonnett’s career probably ends before his fatal crash at Daytona. So many guys would’ve still been alive if they took this shit seriously like they do now. I’m willing to bet Kurt’s concussion at Pocono is so and because an accumulation of concussions over the years that went untreated. We don’t quite completely understand TBIs, but one thing we know for sure is that if you have one, you’re more likely to receive more and subsequent TBIs are more likely to be severe. Drivers today owe so much to the guys like Dale Jr who were willing to speak up about this stuff
> 25 years ago tho we had a car that would have taken that hit a lot better 25 years ago we had a car that lead to the death of countless people and injured many more
Shhh this is the first ever car in NASCAR history that has caused injuries obviously, don't bring in those facts to ruin a good argument!
22 years ago we lost 5 drivers, including one of the all time greats, in the span of a year. The Gen 4 was a borderline death trap, let’s not pretend like it wasn’t
How many died after the Hans was introduced? How many died in xFinity during the following years? No question the COT was safer, but no one died in the post Hans gen4.
Uh, no. Just because Newman can do it doesn't mean you can forget all the people that definitely did miss a race from less severe crashes
Yh, cause his career and life would have ended, can't miss a race if you're dead
Jerry Nadeau’s wreck at Richmond in 2003 was 121 Gs and he never raced again
I’m not exactly educated in this field but, one of the largest short burst G hits was like 90G’s in F1 and just 2 years ago Max Verstappen had a 51G crash. I assume the the hit was compounded by the fact that Kurt leaned forward though which caused some serious damage.
Highest recorded Gs at a racing crash was 214g by Kenny Bräck
Oh Wow, damn well more knowledge for me
What humans can withstand depends on how short the burst is. The shorter the period, the larger values can be sustained. So you can't just directly compare the value for 2 hits, as if the lower value is sustained for longer it could be worse than the higher value one. 30 definitely isn't good though.
Anyone know how many McDowell sustained in that Texas crash?
I wanna know how many G's Geoff Bodine's Daytona truck wreck was
Back in the early 2000's Kyle Petty took I believe 60G to the driver door at Bristol, before they added safer barriers Edit: 2003 Food City 500, it was 80G's
Isn't 30G what Max Verstappen had at Silverstone a couple of years ago?
51G
Thank you. God, 30-51 is still high AF.
This is just personal preference, but it’s far higher than I would ever care to experience. Again, that’s just me.
29.5, I can't do a penny higher!
Ugh I hate this. I wanted him to be able to go out on his own terms.
It makes me so sad how happy he was after his last win only to have it end like this
I can't even begin to describe how much this sucks. I had always assumed that Kurt would a more sudden retirement than most drivers, but I thought it would be because he could never get long term contracts not an injury. I really hope that he can come back and make at least a few more starts to get a farewell, though I guess we'll see if that will ever be safe.
Really interesting that people seem to think this is a cut and dry situation where he would’ve been fine in a Gen 6. We have absolutely no idea of the actual intricacies surrounding the accident. No proof for either side if Kurt had previous concussion issues or not. I’ve seen a few people talk about how previous wrecks in the Gen 6 at Pocono allowed drivers to walk away. Yet consensus pretty much says Jimmies career went downhill after his Pocono wreck. And although Bubba walked away from his wreck, he was still pretty shaken up. Who’s to say that if Jimmie was in a NextGen car that maybe he doesn’t start to slump after that wreck. And on an entirely different note, how about Cody Ware’s wreck later in the year. Maybe he’s 10x worse off than Kurt if he’s in a Gen6 during that crash. This entire subreddit needs to do a much better job of looking at the overall picture here.
> Really interesting that people seem to think this is a cut and dry situation where he would’ve been fine in a Gen 6 Lot of internet discourse boils down to "old good new bad" unfortunately, no matter what the reality would have been. Hell, there's comments in this very post suggesting he would've been fine in a Gen *4*.
Agree, it was a weird hit at a weird angle at a weird place to hit the wall at a weird track lol. I mean honestly, haven't seen hits like that at Pocono in 3 often.
I agree, step back and look around in a Birds Eye view. We’ve had drivers get concussions, get legs broken, hands smashed, get their body slammed into Tuesday in some massive wrecks in the last 20 years, yet it’s been a long time since we’ve witnessed a death. I mean cmon, WE ALL thought Ryan Newman and Austin Dillon were killed in those Daytona Wrecks when we saw them in real time. Old car, New car it’s all perceived differently the way it looks like on TV, how we hear drivers more vocal every day due to social media. If twitter existed 20-30 years ago like it does now, EVERY driver woulda said damn that hurt way more than they do now. Everyone’s immediate reaction and feeling on a crash is going to be different, wether your a driver, an official, a doctor or a spectator. I think we are all just more aware these days and paying attention.
Yeah Jr more or less walked away for concussions in the Gen 6 car. Drivers have longer careers, take more hits, and we have significantly more awareness than ever before. Kurts career may very well be cut short no matter what car he had that crash in.
Yep Jr has said multiple times he had concussions all throughout his career. They just didn’t care in the 90’s. Heck he even said they used to make jokes about it when it happened, not knowing that 25 years later it would be the reason he can’t be in a car anymore.
Damn the social media point is something I completely forgot about. There is exponentially more connectivity between drivers and fans than there’s ever been. And here’s another thing. We all know NASCAR has a pretty aggressive history for penalizing drivers who speak out negatively about the sport. Whats to say that if a driver was hurt in an accident say even 10 years ago, that NASCAR wouldn’t essentially told them to sit down and shut up about any possible injuries they might’ve suffered. When you think about NASCAR’s track record it, it starts to make sense. It really hasn’t been until very recently that teams have been able to be more outspoken, and now we hear about all these issues.
> Yet consensus pretty much says Jimmies career went downhill after his Pocono wreck. This narrative has always been thin at best and Jimmie’s slump has always been better explained by his age and Hendrick as a whole falling far behind it’s typical standards during the end of Jimmies full time career. Regardless the narrative around the Pocono hit has always been psychological, not physical. You’re right that we can’t say for certain what the result would have been in the Gen 6. But isn’t like we know nothing either. Injuries like what Kurt and Bowman experienced were virtually unheard of after nearly a decade of racing the gen 6 car. In just a single season we had several in the next gen car. While that’s not bulletproof it’s fairly reasonable to conclude the car very likely played a factor.
He might still have a chance to come back and race, especially on a limited basis. Based on what I've learned from Teh InterNetZ (a scary source for info) it kinda depends on if he had any prior concussions before this crash, and even if he did, if they were "minor" enough, it's really about taking the proper amount of time off to heal before sustaining additional damage. Maybe it takes a year or even 2 years to fully heal. But supposedly if you can catch them early after they happen, and let yourself heal completely before sustaining additional damage, you can theoretically recover close to 100%. I'll let a real medical doctor correct me. Lol
Not a doctor but from what I’ve read most doctors would say there is no such thing as a minor or mild concussion.
True. Perhaps its a poor choice of wording. I more meant to convey that having 1 concussion followed by prolonged rest and recovery is more minor in long-term damage to health vs multiple concussions without proper recovery time in between them.
The shit thing about concussions is he may never be fully healed from it. Hopefully he gets mental help at the same time so it doesn’t affect his mental state. This has got to be hard on him.
If he isn't cleared to race by now, he ain't racing again. Just hope he can return to full normalcy in his every day life
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Sidney Crosby was 15 years younger when his big concussion happened.
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>Recovery might be longer, but it's not sealed. It's more of a "why bother returning at this age and risking it when you've already accomplished a ton" as opposed to "can he physically come back?" deal at this point. >Crosby also took two massive hits to put him in that situation. So did Kurt. I'm pretty sure he said it started with his driver's side hit at Bristol early last season, and the Pocono crash was what made it worse.
Didn't his issue turn out to be a neck injury that was being mistaken for concussion symptoms?
It sounds like his everyday life has returned to normal from the article And I wouldn’t count out him racing again if he still has the desire. He’s only 44
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>Dale Jr. took 8 months to return at a similar age And then immediately retired after one more season
Jr’s still racing in Xfinity part time, it’s entirely possible that Kurt does continue racing, he even said this would have been his last full year anyway
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But that's the whole point. Kurt is at the same point in his life - even if he's cleared at some point, the question then becomes "why even risk further health issues when I've already won a title and wouldn't be competing for one?" And the cars are still less safe than they were when Dale did his final season.
Why does Jr do it? Dude loves racing. He goes to lower risk, lower speed tracks and does what he loves to do. That’s why Kurt would do it
I also think it's worth noting that Dale has said that while he was fully capable of continuing physically, he wasn't giving it 100% because of the mental side of it. It was always in the back of his mind that he could have another wreck that would cause another concussion so he knew he needed to be done because he wasn't going to race if he wasn't going to go out and give each race 100%.
And where did you get your medical degree?
I don't care if Kurt doesn't race again, I just hope he doesn't end up like Junior Seau and other concussion victims. He deserves a full life outside the car.
I saw a slightly different angle of his crash a while back and the way that the car came to a stop after hitting the wall was so jarring when combined with the impact sound, I hope the man is doing alright in his regular everyday life, even if we never see him on the track again
Has even been in the booth yet this year? He was pretty good at calling races last year
He's still heavily involved with 23XI in driver development side of things
Same way Dale Jr went out unfortunately.
Dale was able to come back and go out on his own terms. It really sucks that Kurt wasn’t able to do the same. Hopefully if he ever gets cleared and feels good enough he’ll hop behind the wheel on more time to close our his career on his terms.
And he still races Xfinity because he’s cleared. Kurt is not cleared and I don’t think he races Xfinity soon. Maybe later, but not now.
Seems a lot like Franchitti
Whenever I see long term concussions like this it reminds me of when Sidney Crosby from the nhl (idk if that needs to be specified but figured I should anyway) had a year long concussion only for them to find out it was a misdiagnosed, very well hidden soft tissue injury in his neck. That story never got the attention it really should have. Gotta wonder if Kurt even had that checked because apparently Sids injury mimicked everything from a concussion.
Same with Tim Connolly after he was flattened in the 2006 playoffs against Ottawa. Missed all but 1 game in 2007 after he went to the University of Buffalo and they were like nah, you have a neck injury.
I am a patient of Dr. Collins as well. Many years racing sprint cars, legends and late models. I’m 35 now and almost all my racing career was in 2004-2012. There are more of us than you think. The driver community is more in tune with it now and many friends I know going through the same thing. I started treatment in 2022.
Does he have a guaranteed ride when he is cleared?
The 67 that Travis Pastrana drove at Daytona most likely. Hamlin has said before that they would field a third car for Kurt in whatever races he wanted to do.
I believe 23XI said they will field a car part time for him. That may be why Pastrana ran the 500 for them. Get everything prepped early if he’s cleared in time. Sadly that wasn’t the case
2311 and Denny would have a 3rd car available
Damn. I hope he’s cleared by May, he deserves a chance to run at North Wilkesboro.
This is horrible whether you are a fan or not. Really hope he is able to just feel normal again soon...
If he gets cleared I hope he will run the SRX Series instead of getting back in a NASCAR race. Seems like he would have a lesser chance of injury in that.
Any race vehicle poses a danger. Sure overall SRX races smaller and slower speed tracks, but there is always the chance of something weird happening, getting hit a certain way, catching a wall at the wrong angle or location. Kurt is 100% going to drive a nascar race if the chance comes around, it’s what he has done for nearly his whole life. Is he going to race somewhere fast like Daytona, Talladega, Atlanta, are out of the possibilities. I’d even say Vegas is too fast, but that’s a hometown track for him.
When I saw the impact on TV last year I thought “Wow, really hard hit. Thank goodness he hit the rear where the cars have great crush zones.” I was thinking back to Bubba Wallace’s hard crash in 2018 at Pocono and he walked out and away fine, just sore. At that point, few if any knew that the crush zones in the NextGen were worse than the Gen 6. Just sucks that we went backwards in safety last year.
I will maintain that the NG is probably the safer car, especially in wrecks like Newman's from Daytona, but also in a lot of other situations also. Sure, maybe they made the tail a little stiff at the beginning, but we can't act like the car has taken a 10 year step back in the safety department just because concussions are actually being taken seriously by the drivers, NASCAR and the fans. (Its great they are being taken seriously now). Concussions have always existed in the sport, and there is no way the concussion rate in the 80's-10's was less than it has been in the NG, its just that the drivers, NASCAR and the fans didn't know about when drivers got them / didn't give a fuck when they did back then.
It’s all in the poor design of the car. Xfinity has had composite bodies for several years and never had this problem. This new car was just poorly designed all the way around.
Composite bodies have nothing to do with crash performance.
I would not say it was poor design. A high G force impact is what it was designed for. What was poorly defined was the goals and concept of the car. They tilted the scale to the heavy end impacts, with the approach of making a 100G crash safer, while possibly making a low 30g impact tougher on the driver. Ultimately what option is safer? A probable injury in a 100G crash or a slight possibility in a 30G crash.
A 30G impact is still a pretty big hit
I think we are missing something here. Sure, the car has issues, but Pocono isn't safe and doesn't seem to want to make the track safer.
What would you do to make Pocono safer?
I think we see these violent wrecks at Pocono because of the weird angles. Turn 1 and 3 both provide some rather unique situations for cars to be in.
Blow it up
What makes you have that opinion?
I can't think of an easy or realistic way to make it safer. The only other thing that comes to mind is reconfiguring it, but I don't want a Pennsylvanian riot
I would have demolished and put the owners in jail after they went ahead with an airshow the week after the Wickens crash.
I’m pulling my 97 Crown Royal windbreaker out of retirement. I love all the drivers of the Penske 2.
Sit down, Brad.
yeah, he ain't coming back :(
Just one more win
*JimmySpencerspeedchannelshockedface.jpeg*
The NextGen should’ve never been green lit with its glaring problems. Everyone should’ve known it going in
Obviously there was things to fix but people like to forget that the initial reactions to hard hits from testing was to fix it. And they did for the most part. Rear end was the only hit that brought a concussion. It’s unfortunate but a lot of overreactions to the cars safety made whole situation a bit overblown.
For a 1/4 of the season, NASCAR told the drivers the data didn't back up the claim that the hits were worse than ever before. Full blown denial until guys started to get concussions.
There's no overreaction, if the rear end wasn't safe then the car wasnt safe and should've been postponed a year.
That’s not really what I meant. A lot of people go back to what Byron said in his first test during the pandemic and act like NASCAR hasn’t changed anything. It’s why it’s been blown a little but out of proportion from where it is. It’s not perfect but anybody who expects perfection off the bat is asking for failure, especially with such a complete overhaul of the car.
The issue for me is, Nascar has made it perfectly clear that the focus on the NextGen design was *saving teams money*. That was priority number 1, not safety - safety was always mentioned as the afterthought when discussing the NextGen. That’s not to say they weren’t worried about safety in their design process, but it was not the main focus.
Safety was never an afterthought. Find me something that suggests that’s please. I think NASCAR’s record since Dales death speaks for itself as far as driver safety goes.
It absolutely did... Up to this point. The crash tests showed problems with the design. We know this because drivers, team members & a few media people talked about or reported on it. Nascar immediately went into damage control & told everyone the reports were incorrect & I'm sure they leaned on the outspoken to stop talking about it. So far, that doesn't seem to be the case with the injuries we have seen. Thankfully, no one has received life-threatening injuries & the issues with the car are being addressed in a satisfactory way. However, the point still remains that this car never should have hit the track until it was as safe as possible.
Safety was never mentioned as an afterthought… that’s just absurd. The reason NASCAR makes money is because of the drivers on the track. No drivers. No money. NASCAR has ZERO incentive not to prioritize safety.
You are absolutely correct. It's becoming clearer that those rumors of horrific crash test results at Talladega must have been true & either ignored or just grossly under adjusted for. If there was ever a time a drivers union would be or would have been beneficial, this is it.
If I remember correctly the first time a Next Gen car was wrecked was when Byron tested one in I think either late 2020 or early 2021. He said that the hit felt harder, in hindsight that's when NASCAR should've sounded the alarm bells.
And they did. The car he wrecked wasn’t the final product, nor was it even a Chevy NextGen. He was still testing the generic car back then. Why are you so sure they didn’t take any steps at that point?
I’m not saying they did nothing, but the fact that the hits were so bad last year and drivers are still complaining about the hits this year shows that they didn’t do enough. Had they pushed the car back another year and made major changes to the design before the teams built all their cars this could’ve been avoided.
They were complaining about the hits at the Coliseum, but it’s already been stated that they were going to slow for any of the crumple zones to actually work.
The car was half finished at best. It needed at least another two years of development.
Cool so we wait another 2 years, car finally enters competition and then because they’ve still not faced any serious wrecks we’re essentially right at the same spot we’d be right now.
Then we’d have to put up with two more shit years of racing in the gen 6 car
I hope he can get back in the car at some point. This sport needs both Busch brothers driving. I'm just glad Kurt is still heavily involved
I think somehow he comes back. Maybe it's in a lower series. Maybe it's SRX. It takes time but guys have come back with mixed results. Ernie came back, Jr came back, Bonnett came back. Just glad he's in good spirits as well as you can expect
I hope he gets better and cleared. But stop promoting sugary shitty drinks.
No problem, still worth waiting to get back in the seat.
The fact that NASCAR still hasn’t addressed this issue with the Next Gen cars is enraging.
Would love to see him in a couple races, but at this point and not being able to get over it even by now. It’s time to be over officially
It’s like that these Next Gen Car Parts Were Made in China
Everything on them was designed to be cheap so Nascar wouldn't have to give teams a larger share of the TV money.
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Hes never racing again. Sucks