Back Behind the Wheel
Lauren Justice for The New York Times
Talladega Superspeedway is known on theNascar 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.
The Damage Done
McClure drives for TriStar Motorsports, based in Mooresville, N.C., in secondary levels of the national circuit. TriStar fields as many as five teams in each Nationwide Series race. Some teams have more money and resources, and they race for wins and titles. Other teams, like McClure’s, struggle to keep up.
In 244 starts over 12 years, McClure has no victories but has earned about $6 million in race winnings. Drivers at McClure’s level receive less than a third of their winnings and typically have no base salary, in contrast to the millions that top Sprint Cup drivers take home in salary, prize money and endorsement deals.
The money is not enough to allow McClure to walk away despite lingering effects from his 2012 concussion.
“I don’t have the statistical or financial success as your Sprint Cup drivers,” McClure said, “especially your larger names in Sprint Cup. So I’m not going to get to retire off of this.
“That seemed to me the biggest factor in everything, probably the greatest thing over the issues with the head, over the issues with any depression.”
The actual number of drivers who have sustained head injuries is unknown. But like McClure, some of the sport’s best drivers continue to feel the effects of such injuries.
The Hall of Famer Bobby Allison is credited with winning 84 races from 1961 to 1988 and the 1983 Cup championship. His career ended abruptly on June 19, 1988, after he was nearly killed in a crash at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania. He never fully recovered from a severe brain injury and has had memory problems since the accident.
“I use my redneck Palm Pilot when I want to hang on to something,” Allison, 76, said, pointing to his hand.
He still has his wit. But as his wife, Judy, said, it does not mask the damage.
“You can leave here and in five minutes, 15, 30, he won’t know anything we’ve talked about,” she said.
Ernie Irvan, who won 15 races from 1987 to 1999 and was named one of the 50 greatest drivers in Nascar history, sustained a skull fracture in a wreck at Michigan International Speedway in 1994. He retired after another crash at Michigan in 1999.
Irvan, 55, said that he did not know how many concussions he had sustained but that he knew how they had changed him.
“I still remember winning the Daytona 500 and things like that,” Irvan said, “but my short-term memory, a lot of times I don’t remember 100 percent what I did yesterday.”
Jerry Nadeau drove in the Cup series for seven seasons but had to retire in 2003 after he sustained a traumatic brain injury in a crash at Richmond International Raceway in Virginia.
“I’m really just a nice guy,” said Nadeau, 43, who said he had tried as many as 15 drugs for depression, “but I’m kind of like a nice, lost, angry-type guy.”
Geoff Bodine, 65, won 18 races from 1979 to 2011, including the 1986 Daytona 500. He said he had sustained at least 10 concussions.
“I pray when I wake up, I will know who I am,” he said.
A Forgotten Legacy
In May, when Nascar announced the new Hall of Fame class, Amanda Gardstrom could not wait to tell her father, Fred Lorenzen, that he had been voted in. Known as the Golden Boy of Nascar, Lorenzen won 26 races from 1956 to 1972.
Gardstrom called her father, who lives in a nursing home in Oak Brook, Ill., to let him know. Then she told him again. And again.
“Every time I bring it up, he’s forgotten now,” Gardstrom said.
Lorenzen, 79, was found to have dementia in 2009 and has short-term memory loss. He has had other problems over the years, including difficulties with walking that eventually resulted in his using a wheelchair. Lorenzen is unlikely to attend his January induction ceremony in Charlotte, N.C.
Gardstrom said she had watched his decline since the 1990s, when his mood swings began.
“I do believe he has chronic traumatic encephalopathy,” Gardstrom said, adding that she had met with Nascar officials in 2013 to discuss her father’s health.
C.T.E. can be diagnosed only in a post-mortem biopsy of the brain.
Gardstrom arranged a meeting between Nascar officials and Dr. Robert Cantu and Chris Nowinski of the Boston University Sports Legacy Institute. Cantu and Nowinski attended the Daytona 500 in February as guests of Nascar. Cantu said he hoped to be involved in designing a test that drivers would have to pass before returning to racing after a concussion.
“These are essentially fighter pilots that are flying aircraft with wheels instead of wings,” Cantu said. “Their reaction times cannot be dulled and have them perform safely. They would not only put themselves at risk, but they would put other people on the track at risk.”
Nascar, which now requires a concussion test at the start of each season, is not planning to put a new system in place.
Steve O’Donnell, Nascar’s executive vice president for racing operations, said that concussions were not common.
“Our average is 3.4 over the last 10 years,” he said. “If you want to look just in the last two years, we had three in 2013 and actually none to date.
“I put it towards a number of the safety initiatives we put forth that put us in a very strong position.”
Nascar improved safety practices after a series of deaths that started in 2000 and culminated in Earnhardt’s in 2001. Energy-absorbing cushioned walls and improvements in racecars, seats, belts and head-and-neck restraints all work to protect drivers. Those improvements probably saved McClure’s life in a crash he was told was far worse than the one that killed Earnhardt.
Still, Nascar cannot be sure its concussion numbers are accurate. It is up to drivers to let medical personnel know they are hurt. Jeff Gordon, a four-time Cup champion, said he would not be honest about a concussion if it could cost him a title.
And Nascar protocols do not guarantee that concussions will be diagnosed. Dale Earnhardt Jr. had two concussions in 2012, the second in a Talladega crash during the season-ending Chase. Earnhardt came forward after the second and sat out two playoff races.
Formula One has monitors within its racecars to alert officials; when a crash exceeds a certain level of force, the driver is required to see medical personnel. Nascar requires no examination if a driver can drive away from a crash.
If drivers are willing to take a gamble on racing after concussions, that may be because of a perception that they are less susceptible to long-term damage.
Cantu said, “I would be very surprised if Nascar drivers are at high risk for C.T.E. just because of the amount of total trauma they take to the head is not that great for the great majority over the course of their career as compared with athletes in other sports.”
But that does not mean they are safe from the disease.
Nowinski said, “One significant impact may be enough to start the degenerative process.”
New Hope
Medical bills from Allison’s 1988 accident took a toll. He is not rich. He lives in a modest ranch house in Mooresville, N.C., and still makes appearances and signs autographs for the money.
Two years ago, the Allisons approached Nascar’s president, Mike Helton, and Jim France, chairman of Nascar’s sister company International Speedway Corporation, to ask for help. The Allisons left empty-handed, although Nascar arranged for Bobby to make some appearances. Now the Allisons need help again.
Bodine said that he had tried to work with Nascar officials years ago to set up a fund for former drivers in need but that the officials had said no.
He said: “I’ve had friends who aren’t dead, but they can’t talk right, they have trouble walking, it’s just on and on. That’s just head injuries. There’s no question we need a program in place to help drivers.”
Right now, there is no way to know how many drivers are like McClure, who have raced in relative obscurity despite injuries.
But Bodine said he hoped to meet with someone from the Race Team Alliance, a potentially game-changing coalition formed by the top nine teams in Nascar to create cost efficiencies.
“One thing I’ll guarantee is we’ll definitely listen,” said Rob Kauffman, co-owner of Michael Waltrip Racing and chairman of the alliance. “And we’ll try really, really hard to have a very sensible and pragmatic approach.”
Drivers are independent contractors, not employees, and they sign waivers before the season that limit Nascar’s liability. They do receive some insurance from Nascar. But the sanctioning body is also protected by the mind-set among many drivers that they accept the risk of grave danger each time they strap themselves into racecars, and they are unlikely to sue.
McClure accepts it, even though he now knows the cost.
“My oldest daughter, she wears her feelings on her sleeve,” McClure said. “She does O.K. with me racing, but I know the days that I leave town are a little bit harder for her. She knows there’s a risk.
“She just turned 7, but her innocence of not being aware of any risk is gone.”
Correction: August 5, 2014
An earlier version of this article misattributed a quotation to Chris Nowinski. He said, “One significant impact may be enough to start the degenerative process.” He did not say, “The one big hit — which is something Nascar drivers can experience more than the repetitive — the one big hit is another possible risk,” which was part of a question he was asked.
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