Garrett Alberson shared more details about the eye injury he sustained while competing in the North/South 100 at Florence Speedway back at the beginning of August.
Alberson was struck with an unidentified object with 40 laps left in the race while he was running in 7th. After exiting his car he was transported to a local hospital and was evaluated for multiple injuries including lacerations above his eye, a broken nose, a number of facial fractures, and bleeding in his eye.
Ahead of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series racing action at Brownstown Speedway for the CJ Rayburn Memorial, Alberson informed FloRacing’s Dustin Jarrett, “The shield never failed. It hit it so hard. Whatever the object was, it was fairly sharp edged and it kinda started to kinda tear the shield, but it didn’t shatter it. And thank goodness to Simpson for building a good helmet that it didn’t shatter, it did its job. It just hit it so hard it compressed the foam and everything and actually hit my eye. The shield and the helmet itself did. Pretty heavy duty whatever it was.”
Alberson and his team had previously shared the damage the object did to his helmet in a post to social media. The team explained, “Given the extent of damage to his face, we have to guess whatever came through the bars was much heavier. His shield did not shatter, it indented and smashed the whole helmet into his head. We are blessed that Simpson Race Products made such a durable helmet, the doctors told us it likely saved his eyes, and his life.”
“Definitely did some damage,” Alberson informed Jarrett. “A little bleeding in the eye, some fractures above and below the eye, broke my nose, shifted my nose over pretty good. The biggest concern was mostly the bleeding in the eye from the get go because that can make some lasting damage if that doesn’t go correctly. That’s why we stayed in Cincinnati the whole first week there just doing daily visits to the ophthalmologist and everything. By the end of the week they felt we had kinda passed the risk period and they felt pretty good about it. After that it was just kinda up to time.”
As for how he’s feeling now, Alberson said, “Honestly, pretty good. My main concern with coming back and racing was my eye and making sure the depth perception was right to where we weren’t taking unnecessary risks with our machine mostly. I don’t feel too concerned for the safety part of it, but it’s more making sure that I can do it well and not tear up our car or other people’s cars.”
“I’m feeling good. I feel like I’ve made some big gains in the last couple weeks here in that way,” he added. “So, yeah, I’m excited.”
Alberson was out for six weeks, but only missed three points paying Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series races. Those races were the Topless 100 and the two races at Port Royal Speedway as part of The Rumble by the River. Based on a driver’s vote he received hardship points for all three of those races, which is the equivalent to a 21st place finish. Even with the hardship points, he slipped to 9th in the points standings from 7th. Brian Shirley and Josh Rice both leapfrogged him He is 35 points behind Shirley and 60 behind Rice. He is also now 935 points behind leader Brandon Sheppard.
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