Ernie Irvan's Doctor to Treat Dion Hindi

Ernie Irvan's Doctor to Treat Dion Hindi By Richard Day ALBUQUERQUE, NM (February 16) - Dion Hindi called Tuesday with some bad news and good news. The bad news is he won't be at Kings Speedway when the Pennzoil World of Outlaws Series opens its 1999 season Friday. The good news is he has hope the vision problems he has suffered the last seven months will be gone soon and he could be back in his #18 Sam's Town J&J before May 1st. Hindi hasn't raced since suffering a concussion as he crashed during the Duel in the Dakotas at Red River Valley Speedway last July 11th. "I was sitting around here recently wondering if my vision was going to improve and thought, 'This is no good,'" Hindi said. "I called a friend of mine in North Carolina who knows Ernie Irvan. I got in touch with Irvan, who gave me the name of the doctor who treated him several years ago. I talked to the doctor about my situation and he said, 'I don't want you to waste a trip coming here and me tell you the same things your doctors told you.' He asked me to fax him my records and said he would get back in touch with me." Hindi obtained the records from the doctors who told him they couldn't do any more for him and faxed them to Dr. Ed Buckley. "After he returned from a vacation, we talked again and he said, 'Come on out. I think I can fix it. If I can't, we have plenty of resources here that can fix it.' He said he knew 27 other retina specialists who would help. This was coming from a doctor who said he didn't want me wasting a trip there who read the notes of one who said it couldn't be fixed then telling me to come on out so he could fix it. I spoke to his secretary this morning, and she told me they would be ready to see me the second week in March." Hindi said he expects to undergo treatment in mid-March then be back racing with the Pennzoil World of Outlaws Series within a month or two. WoO