From Jayski......................................
He'll NEVER be his Daddy, NOR will he EVER win a Championship soooo, who really cares??
Dale Earnhardt Jr. press conference transcript: #88-Dale Earnhardt Jr. met with media to discuss the fact that he will not be competing at this weekend's race at Charlotte Motor Speedway nor at next week's race at Kansas Speedway after being diagnosed with a concussion following the Oct. 7 race at Talladega Superspeedway. Also included in the discussion: Rick Hendrick, Owner of Hendrick Motorspots, Steve Letarte, Crew Chief, and Dr. Jerry Petty, neurosurgeon. The start of the transcript:
KERRY THARP: Joining us up front we have Steve Letarte, crew chief of the No. 88; Dale Earnhardt, Jr., driver of the No. 88; team owner Rick Hendrick; and Dr. Jerry Petty, neurosurgeon. At this time I'm going to call on Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who has some things he'd like to share with everyone.
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.: I guess I'll just start out with where this all kind of began. We had a test at Kansas about five weeks ago, and we blew a right front tire going into Turn 1, and I remember everything about that accident and everything after that accident, but I knew that I didn't feel -- you know your body, and you know how your mind works, and I knew something was just not quite right. But I decided to just try to push through and work through it. I'd had concussions before and knew exactly kind of what I was dealing with. I felt pretty good after a week or two and definitely 80, 90 percent by the time the Chase started, and by the time we got to Talladega I felt 100 percent, felt really good. And then the accident at the end of that race, I was hit in the left rear quarter panel, and it was sort of an odd kind of a collision where the car spun around really quick and just sort of disoriented me, and I knew that I had sort of regressed and had a bit of a setback and knew -- again, you know how your body is and you know when something is not quite right, and I knew as soon as it happened that I had reinjured myself, for lack of a better way to describe it. It didn't feel -- it was not even half of the impact that I had at Kansas, but it was enough to cause me some concern.
So I went a couple days wondering how my body would react and sort of waiting for it to process what was happening. About Wednesday I was still having some headaches, just that was really the only symptoms that I was having was the headaches. So I took it upon myself to -- I contacted my sister, and we talked about seeing a neurosurgeon, and we ended up getting steered toward Dr. Petty. Met with him, ran through a couple tests, everything was checking out, and did an MRI, everything looked good there. But I was really honest with him about how I felt and honest with him about the whole process from Kansas all the way on.
He spent the night thinking about what we discussed and everything that we did on Wednesday and couldn't clear me to race this weekend. I trust his opinion. That's why I went to see him. He's been a good friend of mine for a long time and has helped me through a lot of injuries before, so I believe when he tells me I don't need to be in the car and I need to take a couple weeks off that that's what I need to do.
That's pretty much the extent of it. I got a lot of support from my team. I'm excited about their opportunities the next couple weeks with Regan, and just looking forward to getting this cleared up and getting back in the car as soon as I can so I can get back to work with my team and getting back to competing on Sundays.(Team Chevy Transcript), see the Full Transcript on my #88 Team News and Links page.(10-11-2012)
Thu Oct 11, 2012 9:03 am 
I hope there are no lasting affects and recovers fully.
Little E is a great guy and i agree he'll never be like his father and sure as #### no one else will either.Maybe Nascar didn't like his comments after Dega and are letting him sit out two races,the public can't know,it would cause a riot! 
