NASCAR: Allmendinger rules out IndyCar return

AJ Allmendinger has revealed he will never race an open-cockpit IndyCar again following the death of his former teammate Justin Wilson at Pocono last year.

Wilson died in August from head injuries sustained when he was hit on the crash helmet by debris from another accident.

"The moment Justin Wilson passed away, I said 'Never again'," said Allmendinger. "The only way I would do it is if they put in a closed cockpit over the car and tested it and they thought that was a good direction in safety then I might think about doing it again."

Allmendinger said he still struggles to come to terms with the loss of Wilson, who he raced with at RuSPORT in Champ Car and shared cars with in the Daytona 24 Hours.

"We would remember the good times, joke about it. But you always think about him. He always made me a better race car driver and I remember everything about it."

NASCAR has taken strides in addressing safety issues in recent years and IndyCar will implement additional changes this season including tethering more parts of the race car from coming off in a crash.

"The basis of Indycar racing is open cockpit," said Allmendinger. "Stuff like that has always been more at risk to happen. But every form of racing is doing the job to make it safer.

"Will you ever get to the day when you strap in a race car and say, 'Ah, there's no chance of something really bad happening?' Well, no. That's a part of racing that will always be there, but the best thing we can do is make it as safe as possible.

"It is way safer than it was 15 years ago. It's getting better. When it comes to the IndyCar side of it, that took a big part of me away right there."

Originally on Autosport.com