Appendectomy can’t keep Gibson away from track

AVONDALE, AZ - NOVEMBER 07: Kurt Busch, driver of the #41 Haas Automation Chevrolet, talks to his crew chief, Tony Gibson (L), in the garage area during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 at Phoenix International Raceway on November 7, 2014 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images)
AVONDALE, AZ - NOVEMBER 07: Kurt Busch, driver of the #41 Haas Automation Chevrolet, talks to his crew chief, Tony Gibson (L), in the garage area during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 at Phoenix International Raceway on November 7, 2014 in Avondale, Arizona.  (Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images)
AVONDALE, AZ – NOVEMBER 07: Kurt Busch, driver of the #41 Haas Automation Chevrolet, talks to his crew chief, Tony Gibson (L), in the garage area during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 at Phoenix International Raceway on November 7, 2014 in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images)

LOUDON, N.H. – Standing behind the No. 41 transporter in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series garage, Tony Gibson didn’t look like a man who had undergone an emergency appendectomy just three days earlier.

In fact, Kurt Busch’s slimmed-down crew chief, who recently has lost considerable weight with help and encouragement from Jimmie Johnson, drew a quip from the six-time champion.

“Jimmie came over during practice and asked me, he said, ‘Man, you’re losing enough as it is—they don’t have to take body parts out,’” Gibson said Friday after opening practice at New Hampshire. “It’s not what I wanted to do, but it is what it is. We all get old, and stuff breaks.”

After experiencing stomach issues on Monday, Gibson finally went to the doctor.

“I got home (from Chicagoland) Sunday night, felt great, no problem, woke up about 2 in the morning, and my stomach hurt pretty good,” Gibson recalled. “But I’ve had ulcers all my life, so I didn’t think much about it.

“Went to work Monday. Worked Monday. Went home. But it never got any better. Then about 12 o’clock in the morning, the pain started moving into my right side a little bit. My wife’s like, ‘Look, you’re not going to sleep anyway, so you might as well go (to the doctor).’”

The trip to the doctor turned out to be timely.

“They did a CAT scan pretty quick, and that’s when they saw my appendix was pretty close to rupturing,” Gibson said. “They shipped me by ambulance over to the hospital, got me in there, put me in a room, and it wasn’t two hours later they were doing surgery.”

On Friday, Busch sent his plane to fly Gibson to the track. Doctors had advised the crew chief to stay home until Saturday, but his wife gave the go-ahead for the Friday trip.

“I could have (stayed home), but I ain’t built that way,” Gibson said. “I love this stuff. I love the sport. That’s why it’s going to be so hard for me to stay home when I do decide to do that. It’s going to be tough. I miss it.

“It would have been worse for me to sit home and watch it. The guys are more than capable of doing it without me, that’s for sure, but I just feel like we’re a team, and leave no man behind. They were texting me every day and all day today, and I just feel like I’ve got to be here to support them and pull my weight.”

Even if the weight has diminished noticeably over the past few weeks.

TRUEX GETS NEW TIRE CHANGERS FOR NEW HAMPSHIRE RACE

Martin Truex Jr. will compete in the second Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race with a pair of new tire changers.

Front tire changer Dave Collins suffered an ankle injury during pit practice on Wednesday and will sit out Sunday’s Sylvania 300. Josh Franko, a backup tire changer for Michael Waltrip Racing, will replace Collins.

Adam Hartman, who also has been a backup at MWR, will replace Kyle Turner as rear tire changer. Denver, Colo.-based Furniture Row Racing, which fields the cars for Truex, runs its pit road crew out of the MWR shop.

Greg Engle
About Greg Engle 7421 Articles
Greg is a published award winning sportswriter who spent 23 years combined active and active reserve military service, much of that in and around the Special Operations community. Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.