Those who dedicate their lives to piloting race cars often have a difficult wake-up call when the alarm goes off signaling the end of a career.
Craig Dollansky was no different when the buzzer sounded last summer. Actually, it pulsed through his body, piercing with every movement he made after his second serious back injury eventually became too much to overcome.
“There was a time I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back to racing when I was done,” he said.
Dollansky reached a breaking point in his illustrious career in March 2018 when he announced his retirement following more than 20 years of being a professional winged sprint car driver. The decision came on the heels of a failed medical procedure to fix a broken L4 vertebra he incurred in 2016. Approximately 13 years prior, he was sidelined because of a burst fracture of his L1 vertebra.
“I kept trying to race with it, but it was getting progressively worse,” he said. “In 2017, we were racing in Elma, Wash. Jayme Barnes was giving me a ride to the airport and we had to stop. I needed to pull over because of the pain. We ended up having surgery in July of last year. They found that half of that vertebra was dead. I should have addressed that sooner.
“It’s intense, very intense. Initially, we tried to do a vertebroplasty,” Dollansky explained. “They tried to put cement in it. It pushed out and failed and destroyed my discs above and below it. My surgeon said it’d be like having a major rock in your shoe and trying to walk with it. It’s not like a broken foot where you can just put it up. You’re using it all the time. It’s a difficult part of your body to injure.
“As intense as the pain was I felt like I had to address it. It was starting to affect me behind the wheel of a race car as well as my personal life. We had to start exploring options.”
The failed surgery was also met with bad news regarding Dollansky’s bone density.
“Initially, we got some bad information,” he said. “They did a bone density test and tested my spine. It already had metal in there from my incident in 2003. They said my bone was weakening.”
The devastating news was met with only one option — stop racing and focus on rehabilitation.
Fortunately, a different doctor found that Dollansky’s original bone density reading was false and that his bone density was strong. Another surgery was scheduled in July 2018.
“My bone density was strong,” he said. “It was a contributing factor to the mindset that if the surgery goes well we’re going back racing.”
The surgery was a success, but the recovery has been an ongoing process throughout the last year.
“It’s been pretty intense and lengthy,” Dollansky said. “They said it would be a year before we started feeling better. The surgery went good. Physical therapy went good. I continue to work and strengthen it as best as I can. I don’t have the bone pain. It’s more muscle pain where they cut through you to do the surgery.”
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