THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 26, 1996 TAG: 9605260209
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CONCORD, N.C. LENGTH: 95 lines
Last January, Darrell Waltrip showed the media the huge metal stabilizer that had been used to piece together his broken left leg after a crash in practice at Daytona in 1990.
It was a foot-long titanium rod with 18 screws of varying lengths. It looked more like a wind chime than a medical device.
``I think the thing I realized when they took it out was the severity of the injury,'' Waltrip said at the time.
Even more chilling, in retrospect, was that 10 days after Waltrip was operated on, he went to Pocono, practiced one lap, started the race and ran a lap.
``It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever done in my life,'' Waltrip said between practice sessions for today's Coca-Cola 600. ``I did it, but I totally regret it.''
But Waltrip had a doctor's approval, which is what he needed to get NASCAR's approval.
``We leave the medical side to the doctors,'' said Mike Helton, NASCAR vice president of competition. ``The relationship between the driver and his doctor gives NASCAR its best source of information for what's right.
``When there's an injury involving a broken bone, it's pretty much between the driver and what the doctor has explained to him about what's involved, how much it will affect his racing and how it will affect the big picture.''
Waltrip's story, however, points out the inherent weakness of NASCAR's policy. If a race driver needs a doctor's clearance, he can usually find a doctor to give it.
``I mean, I had no business even being out of bed,'' Waltrip said. ``But because I could get a doctor to say that if I could get in a car and get out of a car, he would give me clearance to do it, . . . I went and done it. But it probably set me back a month.''
The issue is particularly topical these days because there are so many Winston Cup drivers in so many different stages of repair.
Robert Pressley, nursing broken ribs, will have Greg Sacks in relief today, but plans to start the race.
Ricky Craven's cracked vertebra is still sore from his big Talladega crash, but he's going to try to go all the way even though a round of golf Friday left him feeling ``like a wet dish rag when I got finished.''
Loy Allen Jr. has been out since February, when he seriously injured his neck in a crash at Rockingham. And Bill Elliott is out indefinitely with a shattered left thigh bone suffered in a crash at Talladega.
In fact, Waltrip made a point of calling Elliott while Elliott was still in the hospital to tell him not to come back too soon.
Elliott can't even put any weight on his broken leg yet, much less get in a car. But he seems to be taking the prudent approach.
``I just want to get it healed to where I can come back and stay back,'' Elliott said last week. ``So to get this thing . . . to 100 percent, whether it's one race or two races (out of action) or whatever, at this point it doesn't make a heck of a lot of difference.''
Six years ago, Waltrip took a different approach. And he realized immediately upon doing it that his comeback at Pocono came too soon. He didn't race again for more than two months.
But that experience didn't change Waltrip's ways. After he broke three ribs in The Winston Select last year, he still came back to race in the Coca-Cola 600 one week later.
``I couldn't sleep at night,'' he said. ``I had to sit up in bed. But I still went down there to the hospital and they gave me enough stuff that I was able to get in that car and run 80 laps of the 600 last year so I could drive to the first caution.
``That's totally ridiculous,'' he said. ``I shouldn't have had to do that.''
Waltrip said he ``did some harm to my leg that I didn't need to do'' by coming back too soon in 1990. And he's not the only NASCAR legend who believes that an early comeback exacerbated an injury.
When Cale Yarborough broke his shoulder and hurt his knee in a crash at Rockingham in the 1980s, he ``got right back in the car the next week.''
``I don't know whether that was good or bad, but I'm paying for it today,'' Yarborough said last week. ``It's like a 24-hour toothache in my shoulder. I think if I'd given my injuries time to heal right, I'd be better off today.''
The motivating factor, of course, is Winston Cup points. A driver must start a race to earn points.
``NASCAR ought to have a rule to allow you to have a designated relief driver for a period of time so that an injury doesn't jeopardize your points and you have time to be able to recover,'' Waltrip said.
``An injury affects the whole team and the sponsors and everybody. All of a sudden they are handicapped because the driver got hurt. It puts too much pressure . . . to get out there and run a lap.''
Said NASCAR spokesman Kevin Triplett: ``The championship goes to the guy who has the best season on all different kinds of tracks and the guy who has the best luck as well. Nobody wants to see an injury, but until we come up with a better system, that's the way it's got to be.''
``It's a fine line when you start talking about a designated relief driver,'' Waltrip said. ``It can't be indefinite. But I can't help believe that there ought to be something to help injured drivers not lose their whole season.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
``It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever done,'' Darrell Waltrip
said of returning 10 days after major surgery. by CNB