Dale Earnhardt Jr. will miss the next two races of the season due concussion symptoms suffered during last week's crash at Talladega Superspeedway. This weekend will mark the first time that an Earnhardt hasn't participated in a race since 1979.
In a news conference earlier this morning, Earnhardt told reporters that he initially suffered a concussion back on Aug. 29 during a tire test in Kansas. He hadn't been tested since.
"I would love to race this weekend, and I feel perfectly normal and feel like I could compete if I were allowed to compete," said Earnhardt in the press conference. "But I think that the basis of this whole deal is that I've had two concussions in the last six weeks, and you can't layer concussions. It gets extremely dangerous."
Earnhardt knew he had suffered a concussion but admittedly was too "stubborn" to voluntarily get himself checked out.
Click bellow to watch the full press conference:
This isn't the first time Earnhardt has created somewhat of a controversy regarding concussions. He famously admitted that he raced several weeks with a concussion in 2002 causing NASCAR to change their testing procedure for drivers that have been in a crash.
The mega car pileup at Talladega caused by Tony Stewart this past weekend only made matters worse and Earnhardt was furious after the race because of it.
"It's not safe. It's bloodthirsty. If this was what we did every week, I wouldn't be doing it," said Earnhardt Jr. after the race in a press conference." I'll just put it to you that way. If this was how we raced every week, I'd find another job."
The crash caused Earnhardt to fall out of the top ten in the standings for the Sprint Cup Championship. Missing two races all but guarantees he won't win the title yet again.
Earnhardt had a streak of 461 consecutive starts before the announcement today, which was the fifth longest streak for active drivers in the Spring Cup Series.
Teammate Regan Smith will drive Earnhardt's 88 Chevrolet at Charlotte and Kansas instead.
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