MOORESVILLE, North Carolina – After suffering a heart contusion from a crash at Pocono Raceway in last Saturday’s Verizon IndyCar Series practice session, driver Jack Hawksworth was cleared by the INDYCAR medical staff on Tuesday.
The 23-year-old driver from Bradford, England was cleared by INDYCAR medical director Dr. Michael Olinger to compete July 11-12 in the Iowa Corn Indy 300 presented by DEKALB at Iowa Speedway.
Hawksworth was diagnosed with a myocardial contusion suffered in a practice crash July 5 for the Pocono INDYCAR 500 fueled by Sunoco at Pocono Raceway. After initially being checked, cleared and released from the infield car center following the incident, Hawksworth later felt ill and was transported to Lehigh Valley Health Network in Allentown, Pa., where he was held overnight for observation. He was released July 6.
“I went into (Turn) 1 and I’d been pushing and understeering through there and went in there this time and just got lose and went into the wall,” Hawksworth said after the crash. “It happened very quickly and just snapped. I went in there quickly and it hit the wall. I’m fine. I’m just a little bit sore.
“We’d been understeering in Turn 1 during the whole session and there’s a tail wind going into there so we’d been pushing a lot. We just put tires on and went into (Turn) 1 and picked up a big oversteer instead of the understeer and it took us out and I went into the wall. If I thought I was going to stick it into the wall, I would have thought it would be on Turn 3, but it was Turn 1.”
Hawksworth has three top-10 finishes in his first Verizon IndyCar Series season. The driver and entrant, BHA/BBM with Curb-Agajanian, received half points for the 200-lap race at Pocono Raceway.
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