Matt DiBenedetto placed in concussion protocol, won't drive at Texas
FORT WORTH — Sprint Cup driver Matt DiBenedetto believes his slowness in lowering his window netting and limping down the banking on a chronically sore knee at Texas Motor Speedway after an Xfinity Series crash on Saturday were the key factors in being placed into the NASCAR concussion protocol.
Because the BK Racing driver has yet to be seen by a neurologist, he was not allowed to race in the Sprint Cup event Sunday and was replaced in the No. 83 Toyota by Jeffrey Earnhardt. NASCAR mandated baseline pre-season testing for drivers in 2014.
DiBenedetto said he has experienced no ill effects since the crash — "not the slightest bit,” he said — and disputes the need for the move but understands the decision.
“There’s probably some discrepancy between my story of it and theirs of the time of dropping the window net,” he told a small group of reporters on Sunday. “I was trying to be real safe because there was still traffic going by for quite a while after I wrecked. Usually, you want to drop it quickly, but I was being real cautious and looking and waiting until the track cleared. So that was one thing of maybe of my side of it.
“And then walking down the hill, it’s a lot of banking and my left knee has always bothered me for a couple years now. So I think that may have worked against me because it’s always real stiff after every race. But I can’t have surgery during the race season. It doesn’t bother me too much. So that was a circumstance. And there were a few other things but all of them kind of lined up poorly for me.”
Fellow driver Brad Keselowski, a frequent critic of concussion science and protocols and their relation to racing, tweeted his displeasure over the decision Saturday night. DiBenedetto said he would undergo testing — as well as work out — on Monday.
According to NASCAR guidelines provided earlier to the media, if a board-certified physician finds evidence of a head injury, the driver is transported to a local hospital for evaluation, which would typically involve a CT scan or MRI. The driver is required to be seen by a board-certified neurologist or neurosurgeon — with a minimum of five years experience treating sports-related head injuries — after hospital discharge. That specialist then determines the timetable for return to NASCAR activity.
NASCAR senior vice president of racing operations Steve O’Donnell told Paste BN Sports that the concussion diagnosis was made by a doctor on site with consultation via telepresence from Jerry Petty and Vinay Deshmukh.
“We rely on the doctors to make that diagnosis,” O’Donnell said.
PHOTOS: Best of the 2016 Chase for the Sprint Cup