FORT WORTH, Texas — Matt Tifft will not race for the remainder of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season after he suffered a seizure at Martinsville before on-track activity last week.
On Sunday, Tifft met with the media to give a medical update, and to help fill in the gaps on when he may return to the race track. Unfortunately, as far as coming back to racing, Tifft has more tests to go to determine that.
“The next steps are the EEG, which is where they hook up the probes to your head and try to figure out what is going on with the brain waves,” said Tifft. “If that’s not it, we go down the chain of command to see what could have sparked it.”
Tifft went on to explain that while he wants to be back in the car as soon as possible, he is very aware of health being the most important thing.
“I want to be back as soon as I can, but these next few weeks will be dedicated to finding answers with doctors on why this happened. It’s crazy, but the racing part is going to come back. I’ll get back in a car one way or the other, I honestly believe that. But I gotta get my stuff figured out and see what sparked this.”
So how long will Tifft be out once it a solution to what caused his seizure is found? That is to be determined as well. To be cleared to drive a passenger car, you’re usually required to be seizure-free for six months before being allowed to return to driving.
“I don’t fully know what it’ll be,” said Tifft. “A lot of states require you to be good for six months.”
