Jeff Gordon with Tony Stewart on trip, calls accident 'freak thing'
CHARLOTTE – Tony Stewart was having an “absolute blast” riding in the Glamis sand dunes before a “freak thing” occurred Sunday, Jeff Gordon told USA TODAY Sports on Friday.
Gordon was among a group of nine or 10 vehicles riding in the famed sand dunes with Stewart when the drivers realized the three-time NASCAR champion’s sand rail had become separated from the ride. Little did they know Stewart’s car had apparently nosed into the sand after riding over the lip of a dune, which left Stewart with a burst fracture of his L1 vertebra.
Stewart had surgery Wednesday and will miss the first portion of his final NASCAR season.
There were no eyewitnesses to Stewart’s incident, but Gordon was among three people who found Stewart and helped him get to a helicopter that took him to a hospital.
“When we got there, I knew he was in pain, but he is one tough guy – especially knowing what I know now,” Gordon said. “He didn’t complain one time. I would have been screaming like a baby.”
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Gordon, who retired after last season and now is an analyst for Fox Sports, has gone out to the Southern California sand dunes with a group following the Barrett-Jackson car show in Arizona for the last four or five years. The group is hosted by car collector Ron Pratte, who asked Gordon last year about Stewart joining the ride.
“I said, ‘He’d love it and I’d love to get him out here,’ ” Gordon said. “He said, ‘Let’s work on that.’ ”
Stewart joined, and Gordon said it made him happy to see his friend with a “big smile on his face” during the trip.
“With all he’s been through, he certainly deserves that,” Gordon said.
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When Stewart became separated from the group – led by Greg Biffle -- no one thought much of it. Knowing Stewart, Gordon said, they figured he just charged on to the final meeting spot.
But when the group arrived there, Stewart was nowhere to be found. About the same time, a man caught up with the group to tell them Stewart was a significant distance away and injured.
Gordon, Ray Evernham and NHRA legend Don Prudhomme set out to find Stewart and located him in the sand, where Stewart was lying on his back.
“He just kind of nosed in over a lip, not even going very fast,” Gordon said. “It was just one of those things that can happen out there. Nobody was racing; nothing flipped. These are awesome cars, very safe, six-point seat belts. He was wearing a helmet.
“You get into these dunes and you follow the car in front of you and it’s like a big train. You go over one lip and go into a bowl and there’s a few dunes you go over. His came over and nosed down, and when it hit, it really compressed him.”
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The group realized it needed to move Stewart out of the area and get him to the hospital.
“You don’t want to injure him any further,” Gordon said. “You just want to get him to safety, to get a doctor and a specialist looking at him as soon as possible. We knew it was more than just something that was going to take an hour to heal.
“We talked about the scenarios. We said, ‘Do you think you can sit up?’ He sat up. ‘Do you think we can get you in the car?’ He said, ‘I think so.’ It was one step at a time. We all helped him get in there. Ron drove him out real slow until the helicopter could come get him.”
Gordon said Stewart was in positive spirits and told the others he’d be upset if they failed to invite him for a return trip next year as he was being loaded into the helicopter.
“It was purely just an accident,” Gordon said. “It was nothing more than that. Hopefully this is something where we get together again and have the experience we hoped he would have.”
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