Four time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon will return from retirement and race in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 24 if the ailing Dale Earnhardt Jr. has not been medically cleared.
Hendrick Motorsports general manager Doug Duchardt revealed the information during a press conference at New Hampshire Motor Speedway Friday morning. The hastily called news conference comes less than 24 hours after the organization announced the Earnhardt will set out this weekend’s events at New Hampshire Motor Speedway after experiencing concussion-like symptoms. Alex Bowman will be the team’s substitute driver this weekend. Bowman, 23, is a part-time competitor for JR Motorsports in the NASCAR XFINITY Series.
“He’s a four-time champion and has 93 wins, he’s not a bad person to put in the car, but this week he’s in France,” said Duchardt of Gordon.”The way the week played out, we thought we only needed a back-up driver…If Dale is not able to go at Indianapolis, we will put Jeff Gordon in the car.”
“When Dale is ready, that’s his car to get back into.”
Earnhardt was evaluated this week in Charlotte and Thursday was not cleared by physicians to race.
He has been diagnosed with at least three concussions during his racing career. He suffered a concussion at the Fontana race in April of 2002. He continued to race and didn’t reveal the injury until September. He suffered two more concussions in 2012 in a period of six-weeks: a hard crash during a tire test at Kansas Speedway, another big crash at Talladega Superspeedway. After the Talladega crash, Earnhardt went to a doctor for an evaluation. The doctor forced him to miss two races in October because of the injury.
Recently Earnhardt was involved in a multi-car crash at Daytona on July 2. In June Earnhardt crashed in the race at Michigan. He failed to finish at Michigan, and struggled to a 21st place finish at Daytona. Earnhardt wasn’t a factor last Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway, starting and finishing 13th.
Gordon retired from his full-time driving career last season. Every one of his 93 victories and 797 starts came during his 23-year career with Hendrick Motorsports, which fields four cars including the No. 88 Chevrolet driven by Earnhardt. Gordon won the first Brickyard 400 in 1994. Overall Gordon has five Brickyard wins the last coming just two years ago.
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.
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