former NASCAR driver, Mike Skinner, was interviewed and discussed about driving hurt during his Sprint Cup career:
“I had six or seven not minor concussions, but pretty major concussions,” Skinner recalls. “I had a vertebrate sore in my neck a couple of times, broke my scapula a few times, had a punctured lung, elbow, arm, knees, ankles and if you name it, I’ve had it broken or torn. I broke both my shoulders and both biceps. I just got beat up so bad before we started to use the HANS device and having the walls a little softer. I was just very lucky. I was lucky that I got to keep going as long as I did. It was definitely one of those things where it was time for me to hang it up because like the doctors said, they didn’t know if you can take two more or one more hit for you to might not ever be normal again.”
In the year following his stint with RCR, Skinner found himself racing for Morgan-McClure Motorsports, piloting the #4 car. But he stated numerous times that he rushed back, which was one of the few things he wishes he could go back and change. “The biggest thing that tarnished my career was me,” he explains. “When I got hurt, I tried to drive that racecar at a Sprint Cup level while I was hurt. I wasn’t only physically hurt, I was mentally hurt. Nobody has ever been able to do it. I was probably the 80th guy to try to do it and probably the 80th guy that failed at it. You can’t do it at the top level. You can’t ask a quarterback to go out there and throw the football with a broken arm. When you are physically beat up, you have no chance to be competitive. I tried to do that, and if I had to do it all over again, I would’ve stepped out of the car like Kyle Busch instead of coming back earlier. He made sure he was 100 percent before he came back in there.”(Frontstretch)(8-21-2015)
