Tuesday, March 18, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
NASCAR truck series driver John Nemechek is on life support after suffering a severe brain hemorrhage in a crash at the Florida Dodge Dealers 400 in Homestead on Sunday.
The brain injury is inoperable, said Dr. Phillip Villanueva, director of the neurotrauma unit at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.
"The bruises are located within the brain stem and do not lend themselves to surgical intervention," he said. "The injury would be described as an 8 1/2 on a scale of one to 10."
Villanueva said medication and brain cooling were being utilized to protect Nemechek from further brain damage.
"John Nemechek remains in extremely critical condition and on life support following a minor procedure that inserted a catheter to relieve the swelling of his brain," said Dr. Stephen Olvey, director of the Jackson Memorial Hospital neurosurgical intensive care unit.
Nemechek was injured when his truck hit the wall in turn one on the 144th lap at the 1.57-mile track.
Jay Sauter, who sustained a concussion in a separate wreck, was listed in good condition Monday. His truck collided with Tobey Butler's in turn four on the 157th lap. Butler was not injured.
The track began reconstructing the course Monday to reduce the severity of the turns in an attempt to attract a Winston Cup race. The changes were planned before the Sunday accidents.
Track spokesman Kevin Courtney said there was no reason to believe there was a problem with the turns that could have caused Nemechek's accident.
"This accident could have happened at any track at any time," he said.
The track is being changed from a quad oval to a pure oval by replacing the squared off corners. The $8 million renovation is being made at the behest of NASCAR, which had indicated that the current track would not be acceptable for Winston Cup racing.
* SENNA CRASH CAUSE: At Imola, Italy, Former Ferrari driver Michele Alboreto said in court Monday that a mechanical failure caused Ayrton Senna's fatal crash during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. Alboreto, the second driver to testify in the trial of six top Formula One officials charged with manslaughter in the death of the three-time world champion, made his statement after studying the footage of the accident in court. "I believe that the cause of Ayrton Senna's crash was a mechanical failure," Alboreto said. He added, however, he could not be specific about the kind of mechanical failure. Alboreto, who drove with Ferrari for five years during the 1980s, escaped unhurt in a high-speed accident at the Tamburello corner in 1991 - the same corner of the Imola circuit where Senna crashed May 1, 1994. Alboreto's crash, when he drove with the Footwork team, and other accidents at the same corner sustained by Nelson Piquet, Gerhard Berger and Riccardo Patrese, all were caused by mechanical failures, prosecutor Maurizio Passarini alleged. "Mechanical failures are possible in auto racing given the extremes of the sport," said Alboreto, who left Formula One after winning five of 194 Grand Prix races. The prosecution in the trial, which opened last month, contends that a badly modified steering column cracked in Senna's Williams-Renault, causing the crash. Senna died of massive head injuries after failing to make the Tamburello corner and crashed into a concrete wall.
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