NASCAR and concussions

[FLRacingFan]

Not much of this comes as surprise. But as with the stories of former NFL players, it's still pretty sad to read about.

Talladega Superspeedway is known on the Nascar circuit for high speeds, packs of cars racing inches apart and spectacular multicar wrecks that fans love and drivers endure. A crash occurs during almost every race at Talladega, a huge Alabama oval, like the one in the final laps of a Nationwide Series event there in May 2012.

Eric McClure was driving the No. 14 Toyota that day and was among those involved in the crash. As McClure’s car hurtled about 185 miles an hour toward the infield wall, he knew he was in trouble.

His brakes had failed.

“The only thing I can remember is knowing I was going to hit the wall,” McClure said, “and just pretty well figuring that was the end of my life and just wondering if I was going to feel it.”

McClure was knocked unconscious by the impact, cut out of the car and flown to a hospital. He sustained internal bruising and a concussion and was unable to race for more than a month.

But McClure, who has a wife and five daughters, had little choice but to get back in the racecar. That is how he earns a living.

“That changed me a little bit,” McClure, 35, said of the accident, which affected his memory and moods. “Even to this day, I’m a different person in that regard than I was before.”

For decades, racecar drivers have sustained head injuries in crashes, and some still grapple with the effects, including memory loss, mood swings, irritability, difficulty walking and depression, years later. Those symptoms are similar to what some football and hockey players and boxers have experienced. They are also potential indications of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative disease found in the brains of athletes who have sustained blows to the head.

Although Nascar has worked to improve safety since the death of Dale Earnhardt in a crash on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, head injuries have not been eliminated. Without a pension or a union, and with Nascar structured to protect itself from liability and class-action lawsuits like those filed against leagues like the N.F.L., the drivers who helped build the sport and who continue to make it a multibillion-dollar industry are mostly on their own.

Unless, perhaps, a new alliance of owners can finally provide help.

Full NY Times article

 

[ztevans]

I remember watching McClure's accident and being certain I had watched him die. Just a frightening ordeal. I was happy to see him come back, but it's a bit harrowing to get more insight behind the thought process that led to it.

Ernie Irvan mentioned in that piece that his memory issues are mostly short-term ... “I still remember winning the Daytona 500 and things like that." It's odd that they mention that, especially that quote, without adding that Bobby Allison doesn't remember his 1988 Daytona 500 win because of his crash later that season at Pocono.

http://www.sportingnews.com/nascar/...ison-1988-win-davey-memory-loss-crash-tragedy

 

[Mr. Gregory]

“The only thing I can remember is knowing I was going to hit the wall,” McClure said, “and just pretty well figuring that was the end of my life and just wondering if I was going to feel it.”

Just reading that gave me the chills. I cannot even fathom how helpless and hopeless he must have felt at that point in time.

@ztevans, yep, I remember seeing that wreck and thinking pretty much the exact same thing. You knew the second he hit that if he did survive it, he was badly hurt.

I had a similar reaction after seeing that Michael McDowell wreck at Texas during qualifying a few years ago. I was one of the few that actually didn't mind the COT, but after seeing him climb out of that car and walk away under his own power, I was totally sold on it. Granted, the SAFER barriers definitely helped too. I truly believe that if that wreck had happened even five years prior to that, he would almost certainly have died.

 

[Zerkfitting]

It's a good article. I've seen a number of drivers leave the sport after a bad crash. Sometimes when I see an old picture of a race I wonder what some of the old drivers are doing these days.

 

[3wideinturn1]

I still boggles my mind when a driver finds ANOTHER wall that doesn't have safer barrier. NASCAR needs to get their **** together and get it up everywhere. How many more times are we going see a guy hit and they say "well the track didn't have any safer barrier in that spot, they didn't think a car would hit there". Hamlin, Gordon, Sadler in recent years were all lucky to have not ended their careers.