Almirola sidelined for 8-12 weeks after Kansas crash

Aric Almirola expects to miss eight to 12 weeks of competition as he recovers from a compression fracture of his T5 vertebra suffered last weekend at Kansas Speedway.

A mobile Almirola was joined by Richard Petty Motorsports CEO Brian Moffitt and Bill Heisel, the director of OrthoCarolina Motorsports, for a news conference Friday morning at Charlotte Motor Speedway. It was Almirola's first opportunity to provide an update on his condition since being released from the hospital last Sunday.

After consulting with his doctors, Almirola said he will not have to wear a brace during his recovery but racing would increase the risk for further injury. While he wasn't happy to hear about the timeframe needed to heal, Almirola will keep focused on doing what's right for him and his family.

"(They) advised me this is nothing to mess around with," Almirola said. "Definitely need to make sure this is properly healed before I get back in a racecar. Getting back in a racecar two weeks too soon is just going to add two more starts to my start column in the stat book, but if I were to get in another similar accident and not be properly healed, you're talking about potentially being paralyzed from the belly button down.

"I'm not going to risk that. I've got a lot of baseball to play with my son and I'd like to dance with my daughter one day at her wedding. So, I'm not going to risk it. Whenever the doctors clear me, I'll be ready to get back in the racecar."

Regan Smith will drive the No. 43 Ford this weekend. Moffitt said the organization's main concerns are Almirola's health and working with its partners on who could step in the car going forward.

Almirola was injured when he was unable to avoid the wrecked cars of Joey Logano and Danica Patrick, who crashed in Turn 1 on lap 199 of Saturday night's Go Bowling 400. After hitting the left-front wheel of Logano's car nose-first, all but the front wheels of Almirola's car went airborne. After setting back down, Almirola came to a stop along the backstretch wall and needed to be cut out by safety personnel.

When looking back at the replay, Almirola said he was about two seconds behind the accident and that he should have missed the wreck. However, he was committed to the lane he was running and suddenly had nowhere to go.

"Simultaneously when I committed to the outside lane, I saw the accident up ahead and they came across the racetrack very abruptly and went into the outside catchfence and I immediately knew that they were in my line of path," Almirola said. "My car was loose into the corner all night anyway, but I was there in the corner, I saw the wreck, was very aware the wreck was there and I got on the brakes and turned the steering wheel to the left and the next thing I knew I was in oil or water or something because the car wouldn't slow down. It wouldn't steer.

"I felt like, from that point, I felt like my car was on railroad tracks and I was just headed straight for the wreck ... I've been doing this for a long time and I feel like I've always been able to miss wrecks, especially from that far back. Yeah, I watched the replay and I feel like an idiot even being involved in the wreck, but there was honestly nothing I could do. My car was ice."

Almirola said he braced for the impact and immediately felt pain after hitting Logano's car.

"It felt like somebody stuck a knife in my back," Almirola said. "Then I realized my car was airborne because I could see the asphalt, and when it came back down it felt like somebody took that knife and twisted it up in my back."

With the amount of time Almirola will miss, he is likely to miss the playoffs. It takes away the incentive to rush back, but Almirola reiterated that isn't going to happen.

"I think the incentive to make sure that I can run around my front yard with my kids is enough for me not to rush back," Almirola said. "I'm going to listen to the doctors. I'm young, I got a lot of life ahead of me. I got a four-year-old and a three-year-old at home; I'm not going to do anything stupid to rush myself back in a race car and risk not being able to feel anything from my belly button down for the rest of my life."