By alley - Aug 2, 2016, 5:11 PM ET

NASCAR: Earnhardt out, Gordon in for 2 more races

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has not been cleared by physicians to compete in at least the next two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events, and Jeff Gordon will continue to substitute for Earnhardt this weekend at Watkins Glen and at Bristol on Aug. 20, Hendrick Motorsports announced in a statement Tuesday.

"We have a break in the schedule after Watkins Glen, so the extra week of recovery time will certainly be a benefit," Rick Hendrick said. "Dale will be back when he's ready, and we're looking forward to that happening, but the priority continues to be his health and well-being. We'll keep our focus on that and let the doctors guide us."

Earnhardt has been very open since the initial annoucement that he was suffering from concussion symptoms. On Monday, nearly a month after being forced to step out of his car, Earnhardt spoke on his

weekly "Dale Download" podcast

, telling listeners he had reached a plateau with gaze stabilization, which affects vision and balance.

"I want [people] to know why I can't drive," he said. "You feel pretty helpless, especially on Friday and Saturday and Sunday when the guys are working and the car's on the track. It's not a good feeling, it's not fun."

Earnhardt, who said on the podcast that he wants "everybody to go to my evaluations, everybody to be there" was taken up on his offer Tuesday by crew chief Greg Ives.

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"The balance is up and down," Earnhardt said Monday. "Being able to fix on an object at a great distance and stay there with head movement. That's the problem; when I move my head I lose the object that I'm trying to target. That's hand-in-hand with the balance. It's been only three weeks since I first got checked out and that's a short time in the grand scheme of things," Earnhardt said. "But I'm very impatient and I want change now and I want improvement now. I'm constantly texting my doctor asking what I can do to get better tomorrow and he's like, 'you've got to realize this might be a process and you have to keep doing your exercises.'

Earnhardt has repeatedly said over the past two weeks that the symptoms have plateaued. As a result, he goes to bed each night hoping to feel better, but receives different results on different mornings.

"You open your eyes and you go to the bathroom and you know nothing is better, nothing is worse, but nothing is better so you kind of get frustrated on those days," Earnhardt said. "So I reach out (to my doctor) and say, 'Hey tell me you can fix this. I need to hear that again.'"

Gordon, who turns 45 on Thursday, will be making his 800th career start. He has four wins at Watkins Glen (and NASCAR’s best record with nine road course victories) and five wins at Bristol.