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Dale Earnhardt Jr. said problems with balance and nausea prevented him from driving in Sunday's New Hampshire 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, and he is encouraged by concussion test results that match his baseline test.
Earnhardt Jr. spoke for about three minutes in "The Dale Jr. Download" on his weekly audio update on Dirty Mo Radio, providing his first comments on his condition since Hendrick Motorsports announced Thursday that he would miss the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at New Hampshire race for concussion-like symptoms.
"The symptoms that I have are balance and nausea," Earnhardt Jr. said in the episode recorded Sunday night. "I've struggled with my balance over the last 4-5 days, and I definitely wouldn't be able to drive a race car this weekend. Making the right decision really was out of the question; I made the decision I had to make."
Earnhardt Jr. said he was encouraged by the results of concussion tests he took, however.
"My mind feels real sharp," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I took the ImPACT tests, which measures thought process and the speed of your thought process, and memory and retaining memory, and my results matched my baseline -- which made me feel confident that my brain was pretty sharp. It feels good."
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Earnhardt Jr. repeated that there remains no timeline for his return to the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. If he cannot race this weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Jeff Gordon already has been tapped to be his replacement. Alex Bowman replaced Earnhardt Jr. in the New Hampshire 301 and finished 26th.
"I'm going to continue to work with my doctors to understand more about the injury and how to treat it," Earnhardt Jr. said. "They can give me a lot of exercises that will retrain my brain to handle what I need to handle. It's just going to take a lot of patience. I put my health and quality of life as a top priority. I'll always do that. I'm going to take this slow and strictly follow the advice of my doctors and try to learn as much as I can to be smarter and wiser."
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Earnhardt Jr. also praised the performance of Bowman in filling in for him in New Hampshire, and thanked fans and fellow drivers for the supportive messages he's received.
"It's always been a real experience going through this kind of stuff because you learn so much through the experience," he said. "I've got some great doctors to learn from. I miss everybody. I really appreciate all the support I've got. It's really unnecessary, but it really does make me feel good, I have to be honest. To hear everybody wishing me well really does my heart good. This kind of thing can beat you down and get you sad, but I've got a lot of good people around me and a lot of people supporting me."
The full audio recording can be found here.
