Dale Earnhardt Jr. has concussion

ESPN.COM ^ | 10/11/2012 | AP SOURCES

[alancarp]

CONCORD, N.C. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a concussion and will sit out the next two Sprint Cup races at Charlotte and Kansas.

The injury ends NASCAR's most popular driver's championship chances this season.

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Regan Smith will drive the 88 car in the next two races.

[Roccus]

PING!!!

[alancarp]

I don’t have the whole NASCAR ping list, but hopefully y’all can get that going.

[Doogle]

"I smell fishy...????....I mean this smells fishy"

[Roccus]

Jr. had scant chance of winning the championship this year anyway. I wonder if this claim of concussion might be more damage control to explain his remarks after Talladega. He was far from carrying the company line and NASCAR doesn't take well to being dissed. Remember what happened to JJ and Knaus after he (Knaus) gave them the verbal finger last fall at ‘dega.

That being said, I do hope Jr. is OK.

[alancarp]

Fishy? How so? There sure ain’t no upside to NASCAR’s ratings... or even ticket sales... to have Jr. miss his home track’s race.

[alancarp]

Ah gotcha - I missed that bit. That said, I’ll bet the brass aren’t happy at all about this announcement. Wonder when we’ll hear from Jr. himself.

[Doogle]

...JR’s comments shortly after the race....CZAR Helton was not pleased

[Roccus]

IMO, he would be wise to go home, recuperate and avoid interviews until the dust settles. However, a blow-up between Jr. and NASCAR might be EXACTLY what Brain France needs needs to get his head on straight. (if that's even possible)

[alancarp]

Apparently that isn't gonna happen: Earnhardt to address the media (11am edt today?).

Plot getting a bit thicker.

[alancarp]

Updated story here: news conference to include Letarte and Rick H.

[Roccus]

Thanks for that.

[alancarp]

Just read a summary of the post-race comments from from here.

Though he later issued an apology - 'regretting' those remarks, I can't disagree with him in the slightest. The plate races aren't races, IMHO. Individual cars performing well cannot succeed on their own, and going 4-wide at high speed is an obvious recipe for disaster. Those cars were packed in tighter than those in a Walmart parking lot on Black Friday.

[Iron Munro]

I smell dead tuna.

This stinks almost as much as Obama’s September emplyment/unemployment reports.

Reports all said Dale suffered no injuries.

Now this.

[ZirconEncrustedTweezers]

I’m inclined to believe it. While the HANS Device and other similar head-and-neck restraints do an admirable job of preventing neck injuries and basilar skull fractures, they put drivers at greater risk for closed-head injuries. Even though the head stops moving, the brain still moves inside the skull.

[Dead Corpse]

Yep. That last lick Jr. took looked hard enough to scramble your brains no matter what you had them encased in or restrained by.

[Roccus]

According to this
http://espn.go.com/dallas/story/_/id/8489668/dale-earnhardt-jr-concussion-2-races

concussion happened a couple of weeks ago.

[commish]

concussion happened a couple of weeks ago.

Not sure where you are getting that from that story.

According to Hendrick Motorsports, Jr. definately suffered the concussion on Sunday at Dega.

Now he did take a really hard lick during testing at Kansas in August, and he did suffer a concussion in 2002 in a wreck at California.

[Roccus]

Got it from the link supplied.

Jr. says it happened in KS
30 secs. ago

[deport]

Listen to the video with Ricky Craven which mentions the Kansas crash and concussion...... Who knows all the info or at least it seems to be coming in bits and pieces.