Earnhardt, who has missed the last six Sprint Cup races, announced Friday he would not return to his Hendrick Motorsports vehicle for the final 12 races this year.
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Earnhardt said he plans to return to action in February for the season-opening Daytona 500.
Jeff Gordon and Alex Bowman, who have been filling in for Earnhardt, will continue to do so for the remainder of the season.
The report states that the longtime NASCAR star is continuing “recovery from concussion-like symptoms” after experiencing a major crash in MI earlier this year. But the big story in NASCAR is the health of it’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Earnhardt, he said, has made great progress.
“We have very specific treatments that can treat these different problems that Dale’s experiencing”.
All this leaves one simple answer: We don’t know when Earnhardt will return. “The past couple of weeks, I’ve really gotten to where I feel a lot more comfortable about going out and doing and being out and about and being observed”. The 41-year old driver has missed the last six races due to concussion-like symptoms and was expected to miss this week’s race in Darlington and the next at Richmond.
“I am positive we will get Dale back to being a race vehicle driver”, Collins told a large group of assembled media Sunday at Darlington.
“My heart is there to continue”. “I care about him as a person probably as much or more than as a race vehicle driver”.
“Riding in a vehicle or walking to gain stability is starting to improve, which was a major relief for me because that was probably the most hard thing to deal with because it was there 24 hours a day”. Earnhardt hasn’t competed since the July race at Kentucky Speedway. Jeff Gordon and Alex Bowman will continue to split races behind the wheel of Earnhardt’s signature auto. Afterward, he voluntarily went to a doctor for an evaluation and had to sit out two Chase races in October because of the injury. I’m 100 percent focused on my recovery.
“I definitely don’t belong in a race auto today by any stretch of the imagination”, Earnhardt said in the wake of Friday’s announcement that he would sit out the rest of the year while recovering from a concussion suffered at MI in June.
“I saw him (Earnhardt) like two or three weeks ago and then I saw him last Monday and I saw him today, the improvements have been phenomenal”, said Hendrick. I don’t think its coincidence that since we made that decision we are starting to see a lot of progress here that I’m excited about. In Earnhardt’s absence, four-time Cup Series champion Gordon, 45, filled in at Indianapolis, Pocono, Watkins Glen and Bristol.
“Rick likes to say we’ve got unfinished business and I certainly feel the same way”, Earnhardt said.
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In the meantime, best wishes go out to Dale Jr.as he works his way back to good health. It’s tough not to be able to see him in his famed No. 88 vehicle the rest of the year.
