Three concussions in four months sidelined NHRA Funny Car driver Alexis DeJoria from this weekend's season finale in Pomona, California, and her condition has left the popular competitor grappling with everyday life.
"I have limited my outings considerably because it wears me down," DeJoria said Saturday. "I end up getting nauseas and headaches. Once a day I'll try to go out if I feel up to it, but I don't drive. I'm basically living the life of a cave woman. If I'm hungry, I eat. If I'm tired, I sleep. No social media, no cell phones, no computers, no sports, no motorcycles. If I watch a movie, it has to be on a light subject, such as a comedy."
DeJoria's problems began two weeks ago, after she slammed into the wall at Las Vegas during her third qualifying run. That night when she activated her Funny Car's parachutes, they were sucked up under the car. They wrapped around the right-rear axle and got into the brakes, preventing her from slowing the car. The car's body then dug into the left-front tire and kept her from steering it away from the track's left side. When her car slammed into the wall, her head smacked the roll cage.
For several seconds, DeJoria said she could do nothing but hold her head with her hands while still wearing her helmet. She remembers telling members of the NHRA's Safety Safari team to just "hold on," that she couldn't move, but she has no recollection as to how she exited her car.
"My team gives me a very well-prepared, safe race car, but these are still violent race cars; things happen that are out of our immediate control," DeJoria said. "We know our job is a dangerous one."
DeJoria decided to make her fourth qualifying run that day even though she didn't feel well. The next morning, she said she felt like she had a "horrible hangover." She drank a cup of coffee, arrived at the track and participated in warm-ups. It was then that DeJoria realized she had a major problem. Her crew chief, Tommy DeLago, looked at his driver and told her she didn't look right. She knew it, too. She said she felt like a version of herself, almost as if she were having an out-of-body experience. DeJoria had qualified ninth, but her team decided withdrawing from the elimination round was the prudent thing to do.
Two days after returning home to Austin, Texas, DeJoria was diagnosed with a concussion by doctors at Texas Sport and Family Medicine. She said they gave her a series of cognitive tests and she failed all of them. DeJoria said Saturday doesn't feel any better than she did then. She is considering seeing a specialist.
"Every morning since that Saturday night run at Las Vegas I have woken up with headaches. I feel clouded, I feel hazy," DeJoria said. "I can't handle too much noise or bright lights. I can only handle one task at a time.
"Every morning I wake up thinking, 'Is today going to be the day I feel better? Can I get in a race car today?' And so far it's been hell no. I can't imagine me sitting in a race car at this moment and going down the race track. It's heartbreaking, but head trauma is nothing to mess around with. It's scary."
DeJoria has reviewed NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s comments about his concussionlike symptoms this year and has found similarities.
"I was reading an interesting article that Dale Earnhardt Jr. had written, and it was saying that he couldn't understand why his symptoms showed up so much later," DeJoria said. "He'd had a few accidents and a few concussions, but the real big symptoms didn't really show up until much later."
Such is the case for DeJoria. Even though it was the concussion she suffered at Las Vegas that sidelined her, it was not the beginning of her head trauma issues. They actually began the weekend of July 22-24 in Denver.
"We made a run late Friday night," DeJoria said. "I've been through tire shakes a lot in my career ... but this was a certain tire shake that rocked me so hard. ... I hadn't felt that kind of damage in a really long time. You literally felt your brain shaking around in fluid inside your skull and it hits the inside of your skull. I was so affected by it that I wanted to cry. Not because of the pain, but because of the way it made me feel. I felt dumb. I couldn't handle the lights, I couldn't handle sound. I just had to get back to my motor coach and go to sleep."
The next day DeJoria said she felt hazy and had a headache, but shook it off. She lost in the first round.
A week after the Denver event, DeJoria fractured her pelvic bone of the left iliac wing in an accident at Sonoma, California. She also slammed her head into the roll cage, but due to the severe pain from the broken bone in her pelvis, she brushed the head issue aside.
DeJoria spent August recovering and returned in mid-September for the NHRA's Countdown to the Championship. She was 10th in the standings and, therefore, had qualified for the title run. The 39-year-old DeJoria remained 10th throughout the Countdown and was guaranteed a 10th-place finish in the standings after Las Vegas.
She wanted to attend the awards banquet in Pomona that follows the season finale, but her doctor vetoed airplane travel. Her team didn't want to compete at Pomona without her, but she believed her crew needed to be there to finish the season on "somewhat of a good note." Veteran Jeff Arend substituted for her.
"The show must go on," DeJoria said. "I love my guys. I want them to have a good run at it, and we'll make it happen any way we can. I just needed extra time to get myself back in order."
Deb Williams is a North Carolina-based writer and former editor. She has covered auto racing for United Press International, USA Today and The Charlotte Observer.
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