NASCAR Hall of Fame Driver Fred Lorenzen’s CTE Diagnosis Should Spark Action

It was sobering but not surprising to read Tuesday’s news release about Hall of Fame NASCAR driver Fred Lorenzen being officially diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

Lorenzen had battled dementia for decades before he died aged 89 in 2024.

The first known driver to have his brain tissue tested for CTE, his family and the Boston University CTE Center announced the Stage 3 (of 4) diagnosis this week.

CTE is a problem in football, a sport known for punishing hits to the head. So it would make sense that the same would be true for motorsports, where drivers are also subject to frequent, brutal, concussive impacts.

The announcement noted that Lorenzen’s CTE was unlike many cases, according to the director of Boston University’s CTE Center for molecular research, Dr. Thor Stein, who studied Lorenzen’s brain.

For Lorenzen, as in 10 percent of cases, the disease was worse in the areas of the brain that control behavior and movement.

The Lorenzen family has pledged $1 million to help the effort to diagnose CTE earlier in life. They engaged NASCAR in talks to join their efforts, but so far NASCAR has made no financial commitment.

“Caring for my father’s dementia came at a significant financial and emotional cost to our family,” Fred Lorenzen’s son, Chris Lorenzen, said in the news release. “We had hoped that NASCAR would join us in this effort, and while we are disappointed that has not happened, we remain hopeful that there will be opportunities to work together to support the drivers who helped build the sport.”

NASCAR’s approach to head injuries and concussions has certainly gotten more aggressive over the past 25 years.

No NASCAR National Series driver has died since Dale Earnhardt in 2001, and the battle of Dale Earnhardt Jr. with concussions has brought discussion and research into frontal head injuries in NASCAR over the past 15 years.

Some NASCAR drivers wear voices that collect data analyzed by Wake Forest University researchers. And NASCAR uses the King-Devick test after drivers are in accidents — a rapid diagnostic test also used in the NFL to determine if an athlete is suffering from concussion-type symptoms.

It would be easy to compare NASCAR and the NFL’s responses to CTE, but the sports have some differences when it comes to their approach to health.

In NASCAR, there is a history of drivers dying in the race and the threat of an injured competitor endangering others. In the NFL, a player dying during a game is extremely rare. And debates about the health of football center on whether teams have the best interests of the athletes as their top priority, as opposed to their win-loss record.

NFL BEN have to worry about youth participation and whether top athletes will gravitate to football if nothing is done to alleviate concussions and CTE. In an effort to reduce the risk, the league has changed the kickoff rules and been tight-lipped about what it considers acceptable when it comes to hits.

NASCAR doesn’t have that much to worry about. There will always be enough daredevils who will risk their lives to race fast cars.

Because the NFL is so ingrained in American culture and is such a dominant force in American society, the government has influenced and interfered when it comes to how the league protects its athletes. NASCAR has, until now, avoided such scrutiny.

It will be left to the drivers and their families and their commitment to work towards important research when it comes to driver injuries.

Darrell Waltrip’s family announced last month that he has an early diagnosis of possible CTE. Some drivers, including Dale Earnhardt Jr., have vowed to study their brains after they die.

It is not in the psyche of a runner, or the psyche of a family, to willingly admit that racing has negatively impacted their lives.

They often love racing too much or think they owe their lives to the sport.

It may be the case that they don’t want to negatively impact their lives by contributing to conversations centered around how racing can harm the brain and body.

Lorenzen’s family’s extraordinary effort to spark conversation — conversation that could only be conjecture until this point, until a driver’s family analyzed a loved one’s brain — should be the start of meaningful conversations.

NASCAR has proven in the last 25 years that it can still have good racing while trying to be proactive in keeping its competitors alive.

It has proven that there are times when even the best intentions sometimes need change, as Kurt Busch’s shocks in the Next Gen car resulted in change.

“We know the need for programs that support the auto racing community with CTE symptoms is there, and we are grateful to be able to expand our work,” Concussion & CTE Foundation CEO Chris Nowinski said in the press release.

However, work only happens if there are willing participants.

Fred Lorenzen won 26 races from 1956-72, but was unable to deliver his 2015 NASCAR Hall of Fame induction speech at the age of 80 after he was diagnosed with dementia more than a decade earlier.

The image of him on stage with his son Chris and daughter Amanda speaking on his behalf is enough to highlight the impact motorsport can have on a driver’s life and even more so an entire family. The diagnosis announced on Tuesday confirmed it.

She points out that, for all the work NASCAR is doing on head injuries, there is more work to be done.

It will take drivers and families who love the sport to donate their brains. And NASCAR will need to fund and conduct research to ensure that Lorenzen’s family and those who follow him have not made those sacrifices in vain.