During Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series driver Garrett Alberson’s recovery from Aug. 8’s frightening Sunoco North-South 100 incident, he faced the daunting possibility of losing sight in his injured right eye that was obscured by blood.
“It was like looking through a red pinhole or something like that,” Alberson said. “It was not good. In that moment, you’re like, ‘Hey, is this thing even gonna work again?’ ”
For nearly a week after an unidentified object — believed to be something considerably heavier than an ordinary mud clod — struck him in the face at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky., the Las Cruces, N.M., driver remained at UC Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, under diligent medical supervision. The impact drove his helmet's shield into his face, leaving him with a broken nose, multiple facial fractures, a laceration above his severely injured eye and what he suspects was a concussion.
His eye was so swollen he could barely open it, and when he could, blood obscured his vision. Doctors monitored him closely throughout that critical first week, concerned that further bleeding could seriously jeopardize his vision.
Alberson said doctors were particularly concerned about blood clotting inside his injured eye. As those clots contracted, they could potentially reopen the original injury and trigger further bleeding, putting his eyesight at greater risk.
“I guess once that blood gets inside your eye and then starts to clot up, the clotting and then the shrinking of the clot can tear open the original wound or something inside there,” the 37-year-old Alberson said via phone interview late Thursday night. “Then it could bleed again, and that's when it's a real big concern.”
The best news Alberson could've received five days after the incident was that doctors believed he'd passed the most critical stage of his recovery, his eyesight intact. The less welcome but digestible news was that he'd need at least six weeks away from racing, an unprecedented interruption for a driver who’s never been sidelined from the race car.
Precisely six weeks later, Alberson is preparing to return to Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series competition Friday at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway. His eyesight has recovered sufficiently for doctors to clear him to race, though he's still unsure how his still-mending eye will respond to the physical and mental demands of the profession.
A planned test Sunday at East Moline (Ill.) Speedway was rained out, leaving Alberson to make his first laps since the accident in Friday’s C.J. Rayburn Memorial at quarter-mile Brownstown.
“I feel like for a lot of my career, I've just been thrown to the fire,” Alberson said. “That's kind of how we'll do it again.”
For a driver who had never missed a race because of an injury in more than two decades of racing, the past six weeks have brought unfamiliar challenges. Alberson faced an extended absence from his livelihood while he and wife Dani prepared to welcome their second child.
Though his return to Brownstown is a milestone, he intends to evaluate how the Jackson 100 weekend goes before committing to anything the remainder of the season.
“I guess in a way, you can't really complain too much,” Alberson said. “You race a couple decades and are only put out of a car once. That's not bad, really.”
As he recalls the frightful night at Florence, he can remember being struck by something as he went under the flagstand powerful enough to drive his helmet’s shield into his face. What happened immediately afterward remains somewhat hazy as Alberson eventually crept to a halt in turns one and two.
“I think I was kind of, like, in and out of consciousness until I got the car stopped,” Alberson said. “It was enough to know something pretty bad had taken place, and then by the time I got the car stopped, I could feel, like, blood running out my face like crazy. My eye was inoperable.
“The pressure and the pain was, like, something I've never thought before,” he said, “so I knew immediately that I was in a situation I was not in control of. … There are times you know you can take care of yourself when you’re hurt. This was one of those where I realized quickly there's nothing that I could’ve done and it's all up to other people at this point.”
Six weeks later, he still doesn't know what struck him. An examination of his relatively new race car offered few clues. The team couldn't find an additional scratch anywhere on the window bars, which Alberson said are about 4.25 inches apart. Judging by the damage to his helmet's shield, he believes the object struck almost directly head-on.
Whatever it was apparently passed between the bars without touching them, a scenario that still confounds Alberson.
“It must’ve been something smaller than four-and-a-quarter inches, and heavy enough to do that kind of damage,” Alberson said. “Not sure what it actually was, but it was a heckuva shot.”
Alberson has absorbed plenty of rocks and mud clods throughout his career, including an incident at Davenport (Iowa) Speedway one year in which an impact tore the shield from his helmet. Nothing, however, compared to this.
“I've been hit by all kinds of junk. I've had shields ripped off before, and it never actually felt violent like that,” he said.
His Simpson carbon-fiber SD1 helmet absorbed the impact without its shield shattering, though the force indented the shield and drove the helmet into his face. A doctor who examined it told Alberson the helmet — which Alberson debuted that weekend — had saved his life.
A flip during May 22’s Show-Me 100 prelim at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., had shifted some of the impact-absorbing foam inside his previous helmet, prompting him to get rid of it. The replacement received an extraordinary test almost immediately.
“It obviously did its job,” said Alberson, who underwent successful surgery Aug. 20 for his facial injuries.
His recovery also coincided with the birth of their second son, Emerson Cale, who was born Sept. 12 on the night of the World 100 at Eldora Speedway.
In fact, Alberson watched World 100 heat races on the FloSports app while arriving at the hospital for Emerson's birth. According to Alberson, little Emerson is healthy, and the family is gradually settling into a routine with two young children. Weston, meanwhile, is adjusting to the change in family dynamics and the attention now split between him and his new brother.
Dani has carried much of the responsibility during Garrett's recovery, particularly when his injuries prevented him from helping as much as he wanted.
“I'm gonna have empathy for my wife,” Alberson said. “She's been putting in a lot of hours between Emerson and me. It's very humbling, for sure, when you feel like you can't do much to help sometimes.”
For a driver whose income depends on racing, six weeks away from the track brought considerable financial uncertainty. The Albersons received an outpouring of support from just about every corner of the racing world — fellow competitors, fans, sponsors and the Lucas Oil Series alike, including contributions through GoFundMe to help cover medical expenses.
The Dirt Late Model community’s response left Alberson in awe.
“I never wanted to be the kind of person who needs something,” he said. “That's how my wife and I were raised. We've never felt great asking for stuff.”
But the generosity provided something beyond financial relief.
“When you're traveling up and down the road so much, reflecting on that day or night, sometimes you start to wonder, does all this really matter to anybody?” Alberson said. “When you're not having the year you want, does this matter? Then something like that happens and you see the value you have to people, like you have a place in the sport.”
He was equally appreciative of his team owners, Ken and Beth Roberts, and the sponsors who continued supporting him without knowing precisely when he'd return.
“The group of people that we have, the patience they have, all the players in our circle held fast and said we're here whenever you're ready,” Alberson said. “That meant a lot to me.”
Now that his return has arrived, Alberson isn't particularly apprehensive about another freak ordeal. After more than two decades of racing, he considers what happened at Florence an extraordinarily unusual occurrence rather than something he expects to encounter again.
“At the moment, the tracks that we're going to in the next little bit are historically fairly decent when it comes to rocks and stuff like that,” Alberson said. “Just haven't really figured out how my eye is going to do in competition before I put more things in front of it.”
An Indianapolis sports vision examination provided encouraging results, as Alberson said the specialist “felt like I was in a range where I could do it.”
“It’s just whether I felt good enough and comfortable,” he said.
Alberson acknowledges his injured eye has yet to return to normal.
“You can tell it’s still not, like, your muscles maybe aren’t as strong. But as far as like depth perception, that feels good,” Alberson said. “Timing and stuff feels good. Driving around quite a bit. Driving the rig right now. It feels a little different. It looks slightly different.
“When the lighting is good, it feels fairly normal,” he added. “Sometimes, when the lighting isn't as good, it can be different.”
Despite the severity of his injuries, Alberson isn't returning with a specially designed helmet or additional eyewear. He'll wear another new Simpson carbon-fiber SD1, the same model that protected him at Florence, without making further modifications to his protective equipment.
He's considered additional protection, including a rock screen, but he says such equipment can be counterproductive and obstruct a driver's vision. With his eyesight still recovering, he wants to determine how well he can see in competition before introducing another potential obstacle.
Additional eyewear beneath his helmet might not help — or wouldn’t have helped at Florence — either.
“As far as eyewear goes in the helmet, I’m not sure that, if I were in that same scenario (at Florence), that having something between your shield and eye would’ve worked,” Alberson said. “The shield itself is actually what hit my eye. Anything else between there would’ve hit me that much harder.”
For now, his biggest question isn't whether another freak accident could happen, but how his recovering eye will respond when he returns to racing again.
“I wouldn’t say I’m nervous as far as that happening in the near future. When it comes to feeling safe or not, I don't really think that crosses my mind,” Alberson said. “I’m more curious to see if it holds up under mental load, physical load, how it'll do in that way more than anything.”