George Díaz: Edwards wise to health risks of NASCAR.
Carl Edwards did not “step away” from NASCAR on his own accord. We know this to be true because the internet says so.
People suspect a backstory. He was shoved aside by his boss, Joe Gibbs. He is battling some dreaded, undisclosed disease. He hates the Chase playoff format.
Or perhaps this: He decided to walk away when he still could process cognitive thoughts.
“I don’t like how it feels to take the hits that we take, and I’m a sharp guy, and I want to be a sharp guy in 30 years,” Edwards said, citing health concerns as one of the main reasons for walking away.
Edwards also cited the all-encompassing grind and the fact that he is satisfied with his niche in NASCAR history,
but I suspect health may be the main one. As athletes in all sports become more aware of the riskreward consequences, they are getting smarter about the end game:
Is the possibility of destroying your mind and body really worth it?
“If I knew back then what I know now, I would have never played football. Never,” former multisport star Bo Jackson told USA Today last week. “I wish I had known about all of those head injuries, but no one knew that. And the people that did know that, they wouldn’t tell anybody.
“The game has gotten so violent, so rough. We’re so much more educated on this CTE stuff, there’s no way I would ever allow my kids to play football today.”
Bo Knows, as does Carl. And they want to keep it that way before things get fuzzy.
NASCAR, much like pro football, is much safer these days. But it also took the death of its iconic star, Dale Earnhardt Sr., in the 2001 Daytona 500 to implement significant changes in NASCAR, like head-and-neck restraints and soft-wall barriers.
Still, there are no guarantees of safe passage. Ironically, one of the biggest storylines of the 2016 NASCAR season was the concussion-related issues facing Dale Earnhardt Jr. that took him out of half of the races. He plans on returning next month in time for the Daytona 500 after receiving medical clearance in December.
“It is a contact sport and
you have to be very conscious of your health,” Denny Hamlin, a Joe Gibbs Racing teammate of Edwards, told me Friday after a round of golf in Central Florida. “The cars are safe as they’ve ever been, but your head can’t take but so many hits, for sure.”
Edwards has no history of traumatic injury. His car did go airborne and went flying into the outside catch fence at Talladega in 2009. Edwards was fine, but eight spectators suffered injuries.
“NASCAR puts us in this box [restrictor-plate racing] and will race this way until they kill somebody,” Edwards said at the time. “Then they’ll change it. We’re very lucky nobody got [seriously] hurt today.”
Right or wrong about his doom-and-gloom prediction, Edwards decided that playing lottery with his health isn’t a good thing. His wife Kate is a physician at the University of Missouri Department of Physical Medicine and works with patients who have traumatic and severe brain injuries.
As a sharp power couple, they know more than the rest of us about the collateral damage in contact sports.
Carl and Kate have two children under 10. Carl admittedly lives frugally, and still resides in the same house he grew up in Columbia, Mo. He was one of NASCAR’s highest-paid drivers in 2015, bankrolling $13.5 million, according to Forbes.
At some point, it all becomes Monopoly money. And you think about family and time — birthdays and anniversaries missed, school functions, holidays spent in the grind.
And then you think about your health.
“Sometimes when you get your bell rung, it’s a wakeup call,” Hamlin said. “You never know.”
It’s likely Carl Edwards heard some bells. They were cautionary ones. His mind was very clear. He chose to listen.
Godspeed. You are a wise man.