RPW Exclusive: Craig Dollansky Has Eyes On Comeback To Sprint Car Seat In ’19

Column By: SHANE CARLSON / RPW – ZIMMERMAN, MN – It was recently announced Craig Dollansky, a 66-time winner at the World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Car Series, was ending his retirement early.

As a result of a crash at Yuma Speedway (now Cocopah Speedway) in 2016, Dollansky suffered a broken L4 vertebra but he continued to race through the pain the remainder of the 2016 season. ‘The Crowd Pleaser’ made an attempt to race in 2017 but the pain was too much.

Dollansky was sidelined the rest of the season and didn’t undergo surgery to correct his back injury until 2018. “I knew we had to address the injury, and that it would take a significant surgery,” he said.

During the surgery, his team of surgeons discovered part of Dollansky’s L4 vertebra was dead as a result from compounding injuries prior to his 2016 crash. Even before his crash at Yuma, Dollansky said he had back pain from other crashes that had started to add up as he got older.

The Minnesota driver was forced to call it a career last March after lingering back injuries from a crash sustained in 2016.

Or so he thought.

Even though the task in front of Dollansky was admittedly daunting, proceeding with the intense surgery and recovery process was something he needed to do, if for nothing else, for his own overall health. Through it all, he said he still dreamed of getting back behind the wheel of a sprint car.

The key would be if the driver’s body could handle the surgery and everything that followed.

“I really questioned if I could be prepared physically and mentally after that to go back racing like you need to,” he said. “It takes something out of you. I didn’t know how quickly my body would respond.”

A few months before the surgery, the pain was as bad as it had ever been, Dollansky said. Even following the surgery, for three months, he said the pain was excruciating, but after three months, the switch was flipped.

His body began to respond to his rehabilitation efforts, which included cryotherapy, often referred to as cold therapy, where patients step into a chamber with temperatures 150 degrees below zero for two to four minutes wearing just socks, underwear, a hat and gloves under close supervision in case of an accident.

He attended cryotherapy sessions once a week for three minutes, as well as pairing his regimen with cardio work and swimming laps in the pool.
Dollansky said even though he’s lost a little mobility because of the surgery when his L4 vertebra and the discs above and below were removed, he feels better than he has in a long time.

Retiring last year wasn’t something Dollansky had wanted to do. He was forced to leave the sport he loves on terms other than his own. Dollansky said being sidelined, “was much more difficult than I ever thought it would be.” When people have their livelihoods taken away from them on a whim, Dollansky said it was hard to accept not being a racecar driver anymore.

He enlisted the help of a counselor to help him fight through the dark days and help deal with the new challenges that awaited him.

He tried to detach himself from racing altogether, but when your 20-plus year career of winning races suddenly comes to a halt, it’s much easier to say than do. Needless to say, he couldn’t not think about racing.

Stringing together good days into good weeks and good months in the road to recovery, Dollansky said he was able to reflect on his career and what mattered the most to him. His faith, family, friends and fans motivated him to get better and set his sights on a return to the cockpit.

In early January 2019, Dollansky made it official; he was coming back.

Dollansky plans to make his return at Devil’s Bowl Speedway on March 15-16 behind the wheel of Danny and Naomi King’s No. 88 car on the Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series circuit.

He will then turn his focus on running the No. 7 Selvage Motorsports car at Knoxville Raceway as a part of their weekly program, placing a major effort on the Knoxville Nationals in August.

Beyond this season, Dollansky said if his body is able to handle being back in the racecar, and contingent on finding a competitive, championship-caliber team, he would like to make it back the World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Car Series in 2020.

Follow Craig Dollansky at www.dollanskyracing.com, on Twitter @CraigDollansky and Facebook at Craig Dollansky Racing.