Charlotte, NC (SportsNetwork.com) – Kyle Larson has been medically cleared to
return to racing after he missed last Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at
Martinsville Speedway due to a fainting spell.
Chip Ganassi Racing said in a statement on Thursday, “Following a thorough
review of all the test results by his attending physicians and in conjunction
with the medical staff from NASCAR, Kyle Larson has been medically cleared to
return to all NASCAR related activities beginning at Texas Motor Speedway next
weekend, April 10-11.”
All three of NASCAR’s national touring series are off this Easter weekend.
Larson fainted during an autograph session the day before the Sprint Cup race
at Martinsville and had been hospitalized at the Carolinas Medical Center in
Charlotte until Monday night for extensive testing and observation. Regan
Smith substituted for Larson in the No. 42 Chevrolet.
“I feel great right now, and I felt perfectly fine shortly after I fainted the
other day,” Larson said during a teleconference on Thursday. “I just had to
get a lot of tests run on me to make sure nothing serious was wrong with me,
and all the tests came back negative.
“The whole time I felt fine and hated it that I couldn’t race this (past)
weekend, but Regan did a really good job.”
Smith, a regular in the Xfinity Series, drove the No. 42 car to a 16th-place
finish in the Martinsville race.
Larson, 22, was first transported to a local hospital in Martinsville after he
had fainted. He was then sent to a Charlotte, where he underwent further
testing and consulted with a neurologist. Larson had participated in final
Sprint Cup practice at Martinsville shortly before the autograph session.
“I felt fine before we went to the autograph session,” he said. “I got through
to the end of it, and I was just talking to one more fan, the last person
there really, and just started getting light-headed and tried to lean forward
and maybe see if that fixed it, and then I passed out.”
Doctors think Larson might have suffered from dehydration.
“One of the first things they thought it was dehydration, so they just ran a
bunch of tests, like tons of tests on me just to make sure nothing else was
wrong with my body,” Larson said. “It all kind of circled back to just being
dehydrated.
“I got nervous a couple times throughout. Anytime you’re in a hospital you get
nervous. But I was confident everything was fine, and it turned out where
everything in the end was fine.”
Larson dropped from 18th to 24th in the Sprint Cup point standings after
missing the race. He remains eligible for the Chase for the Sprint Cup
championship since he had qualified seventh for the event last Friday.
