Kurt Busch’s crew chief Tony Gibson could miss a portion of the upcoming Sprint Cup Series race weekend at New Hampshire after having an emergency appendectomy Tuesday. Stewart-Haas Racing confirmed that team engineer John Klausmeier will guide the Stewart-Haas Racing #41 crew in Gibson’s absence and that competition director Greg Zipadelli will have an increased presence with the team. The team said that Gibson will get to the track once he feels physically able to work, and that could be as early as Friday morning or as late as Saturday afternoon. Practice and qualifying are scheduled for Friday with additional practice scheduled for Saturday. The team would not comment on why Gibson would miss part of the weekend, but Gibson posted on Facebook that he had his appendix removed: “Thanks everyone for the prayers, calls, texts and Facebook messages. Got home from the hospital last night. Just really sore today. Who needs an appendix anyway?”(ESPN.com)(9-23-2015)
UPDATE Tony Gibson, who had an appendectomy Tuesday, arrived at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Friday in time for the opening laps of practice. Gibson tweeted a thank-you message to Busch on Friday morning for sending his plane to get him, which allowed Gibson to get some extra recovery time at home Thursday night. The Stewart-Haas Racing team, under the direction of team engineer John Klausmeier, took the Busch car through technical inspection Friday morning. Gibson arrived in time for practice, met with Busch and the crew in the team transporter and watched practice from pit road instead of his usual spot atop the transporter.(ESPN)(9-25-2015)
