NASCAR safety measures having an effect

By Chris Jenkins

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.

If Michael Waltrip were to count up all the concussions he has sustained over a NASCAR career that stretches back nearly 30 years, he'd certainly hit 10 - and probably keep going.

Safety measures since Dale Earnhardt's death in 2001 have gone a long way toward preventing head injuries, and NASCAR officials have taken steps to improve the way they identify and treat concussions. But Waltrip knows that won't undo all those hits he took in the 1980s and '90s.

"I whacked my head - a lot," Waltrip said. "If you think about this, I showed up in '85, when it was relatively 'safe.' We thought we had it figured out. I raced all the way through 2001 when people were getting killed. And all through that time, I was hitting my head and knocking myself out and getting concussions and going to the hospital."

The 48-year-old Waltrip gets uneasy when he hears stories about NFL players and other athletes who are having neurological problems after they retire, issues that a growing amount of research indicates may have been caused by repetitive brain injuries.

Earnhardt's death in the 2001 Daytona 500 - which came after drivers Kenny Irwin, Adam Petty and Tony Roper all were killed by similar head injuries - forced NASCAR to get serious about safety.

Today, drivers must wear a head and neck restraint, while impact-absorbing SAFER barriers have been installed on racetrack walls and NASCAR redesigned race cars to reduce the risk of injury. Racing seats used to look a lot like passenger car seats; now they look more like something out of a spaceship, with foam-padded supports on each side of the helmet that barely allows a driver's head to move during a crash.

It's working. Going into Sunday's Daytona 500, there hasn't been a death in NASCAR's top three national series since Earnhardt's.

NASCAR officials say they've identified 29 concussions in their top three series since 2004 - and only 11 of those happened in the past five seasons.

"Not huge numbers, when you see it," said Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR's senior vice president of racing operations. "But with each of those, each one's different, we've had to assess each one differently."

And while there have been drivers who experienced long-term effects from traumatic head injuries over the years - including Bobby Allison, Ernie Irvan, Jerry Nadeau and Steve Park - O'Donnell says NASCAR doesn't see evidence of widespread health issues related to multiple head injuries, as the NFL and other sports are.

In response to reports of football players, hockey players and other athletes having neurological issues in retirement, researchers at the Boston-based Sports Legacy Institute have studied brain tissue of deceased former athletes. They've found evidence of a degenerative brain disease known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy that has been linked to repetitive brain injuries.

O'Donnell said NASCAR officials have noticed.

"Absolutely," O'Donnell said. "It's something we pay attention to on any aspect of other sports, what they're doing."

For now, veteran driver Jeff Burton is trying to gather as much information as he can about the long-term effects of concussions. Burton's father-in-law is a physician and has attended sports medicine conferences on his behalf.

The 44-year-old Burton started racing in NASCAR's top division in 1993, well before the post-Earnhardt safety advances.

"I can tell you that in retrospect, there's been many times that I've had concussions," Burton said. "And the definition of concussion is a very widely used term, and how you actually define a concussion has changed over the years. But there's no question that with hitting concrete, not having (today's safety equipment), there's no question people had concussions. No question."

Waltrip said he blacked out after an accident in practice at Las Vegas in 1998, but kept it to himself.

"Hit the wall, got in the backup car, made a couple laps, went to the hotel, woke up the next morning, didn't even know how I got there," Waltrip said. "You could just fake people out back then. 'Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine.' They didn't care. 'OK, you're fine.'"

Today, any driver involved in a significant accident must visit the infield medical center, where checking for signs of a concussion is standard procedure. If a concussion is suspected, the driver will be sent to a local hospital. From there, the driver will need to be cleared by a neurosurgeon with at least five years' experience in sports-related head injuries before he or she can race again.

"They always ask you," Burton said. "The key to that, though, is honesty. Unless it's obvious. Sometimes you can tell. But a lot of times, in football and in every sport, people say, 'I'm fine.'"