Gear

Is There a Doctor in the Pit?

Those who wonder if race car drivers are really athletes (rather than, say, 220-mph couch potatoes) should clock the therapeutic oneupmanship that has seized the sport — notably on the endurance racing circuit. Case in point: The medical support team for Hurley Haywood, a five-time winner of 24 Hours at Daytona who drives for Brumos […]

Those who wonder if race car drivers are really athletes (rather than, say, 220-mph couch potatoes) should clock the therapeutic oneupmanship that has seized the sport — notably on the endurance racing circuit.

Case in point: The medical support team for Hurley Haywood, a five-time winner of 24 Hours at Daytona who drives for Brumos Racing. Haywood's pit crew includes a surgeon who acts as medical director and hydration administrator; a doctor/biochemist handling "driver support"; a Mayo Clinic neurosurgeon administering acupuncture; and a massage therapist doing whatever massage therapists do.

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And that ain't all:

The coolest tool — literally — that Brumos employs is a mild hyperbaric chamber made by Oxy Health that costs about $10,000. After each shift on the track, a driver spends up to 60 minutes in the chamber, an 8-foot urethane-coated nylon bag 22 inches in diameter that is filled with chilled air at about 5 pounds a square inch above atmospheric pressure. The increased pressure helps to deliver fluid — water and electrolytes — into the body's cells where it will do the most good, Dr. Gleddie said.

"The chamber also promotes relaxation by normalizing heart rate, respiration, blood pressure and temperature," he said. "Drivers tell me that 45 to 60 minutes of this treatment is equivalent to 4 hours of sleep."

Since it's mainly about rehydration (something about those 110-degree cockpit temperatures), low-sugar electrolyte brews and IV saline solution are also part of the mix.

Having driven coast-to-coast more times than I care to count, I'm completely on board with the idea of drivers as athletes. If two seconds of brain fade can send a driver spinning into a wall, it should be obvious that conditioning is critical. The question is, why wait for the pit stop? Shouldn't medical support be fused with the driving experience, like the Snickers bar I keep next to the emergency brake? Astronauts get continuous in-flight medical monitoring. If it works for NASA, why not for NASCAR?

[Source: The New York Times (registration required)]