Jimmie Johnson won’t do Indy 500 unless cockpits closed

Jimmie Johnson not looking at IndyCar unless they close the cockpits

NASCAR drivers are talking about the Verizon IndyCar Series and the Indianapolis 500 5 1/2-hours away from the IndyCar race this weekend.

On Friday morning, Kurt Busch said that Marco Andretti should try to run a Cup race, most notably at Daytona due to his love of the draft. Then, in his media availability after, seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson talked about the Indy 500 and said that the window has “closed" for his chance on running it.

“My window has closed," Johnson told NASCAR reporters at the Bristol Motor Speedway during his weekly Friday morning media availability. He cited his family and a lack of head protection in IndyCar as reasons why. He also said he would have liked to see a closed cockpit to even think about trying it.

Without head protection, discussions with his wife has led to him at one point seriously considering it, to now having that window shut.

IndyCar needs to put overhead protection on their cars now. The serious talk really started in 2015 when Justin Wilson was tragically killed by a piece of debris hitting his helmet at Pocono, and it’s stayed around really ever since. With a new car coming in 2018, there’s talks about adding some sort of protection on it.

But in fact thousands open wheel drivers have died from head injuries for the last 100 years.