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LONG POND, Pa. – Aric Almirola was involved in a messy wreck that crunched his No. 43 Ford Fusion on Lap 1 of Sunday’s Overton’s 400 at Pocono Raceway, immediately raising a question — is his surgically-repaired back OK?
“My feelings are hurt, my back is fine,” Almirola said after being evaluated and released from the infield care center.
The driver was cleared to return to racing earlier in July following a compound fracture of the T5 vertebra in a crash at Kansas Speedway in May. He was sidelined for eight weeks, missing seven points races, while recovering from the injury.
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His back is fine, thankfully, but his car was not. Almirola was scored in 38th place following the wreck.
“I have no idea what happened. I don’t know if there was fluid on the track or everybody was spinning; there was smoke,” he said. “I tried to get down, but I got piled into from behind and got shoved up into the wreck. I thought we had a really good car for today, just disappointed that we didn’t even make a whole lap.
“It’s pretty rare (to see a first-lap wreck like that). We all know going into these races that we’ve got 400 miles to race and everybody is usually pretty smart. We’re aggressive; you have to be to get spots on the starts and restarts to sort of get the track position you need, but, man, you don’t usually put yourself in position to get wrecked that early in the race.”