A lingering neck injury will keep Jimmy Blewett out of the Petty Cash Motorsports SK Modified at Stafford Speedway for at least the next three weeks.
Blewett told RaceDayCT Thursday morning that he hopes to be back in the car for the season’s final event at Stafford on Sept. 29.
“It’s nothing like life or death,” Blewett said. “I hurt my neck I think when I wrecked [racing at Wall Stadium in Wall, N.J.] and then I got him from behind there from Marcello [Rufrano] a few weeks ago [at Stafford] and I just started feeling my neck getting stiffer and stiffer and stiffer after that. I started feeling some pain. I had to get an MRI and they found I had some herniated discs and I have one disc that’s a little out of place. It’s nothing that isn’t treatable. I have to get the inflammation down in my neck and get the physical therapy and get everything put back in place where it needs to be. That’s where I’m at.
“I thought I pulled a muscle. That’s just where I was. I was icing and heating and all that. It went from feeling stiff to a shooting pain and it wasn’t going away. I just thought, ‘Uh oh, I think I might have messed myself up.’”
Four SK Modified events remain on the schedule for the 2023 season at Stafford. Blewett currently sits third in the division standings, 76 points behind division leader Todd Owen and 18 points behind second place Cory DiMatteo. Blewett has one win, seven top-five’s and 10 top-10’s in 14 SK Modified starts at Stafford this year.
“I was going try to rough it out and finish the year, but now that I know exactly what is going on, I’m just glad I didn’t go and continue to race and hurt myself even worse,” Blewett said. “The doctor was optimistic. He said, ‘You will be fine, you will race, but you’ve got to get yourself better.’ He said ‘Right now, if you take of yourself and do everything you need to do you’ll be better. But if you go out and get one more wreck it’s going to put you behind even further.’ … I’ll get myself healed up and I’ll be back.
JJ Vece, crew chief for the Petty Cash Motorsports team, said it’s unclear what the team will do while Blewett recovers.
“Its unfortunate that he’s hurt and our first priority is Jimmy getting better,” Vece said. “We care more about the driver getting better than us going out racing.
Blewett said he has no issues with the team using a fill-in driver while he recovers.
“I told them, do you what you guys want to do,” Blewett said. “I’m a racer so I get the whole racer aspect. If I couldn’t race my car and I had somebody good that I knew I could take to the race track and they could win in my car, I would do that. … If they have somebody and that’s what they want to do, they’re not going to hurt my feelings. I want them to go out there and for all the hard work they put in each week, I still want them to be able to get that out of it. If they choose to sit and wait for me, that’s fine too.”
Two exciting drivers come to mind – Narducci or the Pup
Best wishes for a great recovery!
William Lambros
I think the Puppy is out given he is in the running for the SK light championship. Stafford has a rule where you cant run a SK light and SK or Limited and Late model on the same night without approval. I think they generally approve it the last week or two of the season if someone is planning on moving up a division. I have never seen it approved for a higher division driver moving down. No such rule for SKL and Tour type or SK and tour type as they wouldnt have a field without lower division drivers participating in the opens.
Narducci has already been let go by that team and the pup is running for a championship in SK lites so don’t think he is going to give that up and he can’t do both,that team already had someone very capable in a second car this year, have to wait and see , only one more day
Just dumb rules at Stafford. You can run Open mods and skl but not sk…looks like a Woody Pitkat will be in the 85
Put Jake Johnson in that car.
I feel ashamed. First thought was Blewett was dinged up, fading in the points so perhaps losing a little motivation to make that incredibly difficult trek every Friday night. Disc out of place are you kidding me? Good for him he did go to the doc, the last thing you want to do is trying to tough out a spine issue in a race car. Don’t set any artificial goals like the Fall Final for when to come back. The goal should be no herniating, no bulging and all discs where the good Lord intended them to be…..period!
Back for the Fall Final means two features missed, maybe less with rain and theoretically still in third place in the points. That’s not really important is it? Your big guy is on the bench, there’s races to be run, you do it all to compete so what do you do? Maybe put the best person in the car qualified to win in the last four events. The 85 is a top tier team, the points nice but they are there after all to win. To win you need to start tonight to get the three races in for the handicap. Ok a little in the weeds but it’s a factor isn’t it?
Blewett’s a heavy hitter and it was special seeing him compete and fit right in with the SK’s. Could be two weeks or the rest of the season. Wouldn’t it be great to have another big name like Coby, McKennedy or Solomito fill Blewett’s shoes. I know, pipe dream right?
Tough year for health news involving a number of prominent racing folk. Make the sport enhance your quality of life. Don’t risk your health for the sake of the sport it’s only racing.
Smart move by Showtime,backs and discs are nothing to play around with. Probably late to the show but how about thinking way way outside the box. How about Mikey Jr? The 82 has been off the pace for a good year.And Mike Sr puts Narducci in the 82 and maybe figure out their problem. The 85 team probably wouldn’t go for it I understand that.But we throw out ideas in a chat room so that’s my 2 cents.
I myself suffer from neck injuries, and I can tell you it is no fun. It takes very little to irritate the injuries, and the pain is excruciating, and effects your whole body. Jimmy is doing the right thing by sitting out a few weeks.
Jimmy, I hurt my neck back in 2011. Had 2 blown disk and a cracked vertebra that they operated on. To this day I still get pain and swelling that can last a week or two. I hope your neck gets fixed and you don’t have pain that lingers on for years.