Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Back injury sends Brandon Bernstein to sidelines

Thursday, May 22, 2003 | 9:44 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Brandon Bernstein will not have to undergo surgery to repair a crushed vertebra in his upper back, but he will be out of action for "several months," according to his father, drag-racing legend Kenny Bernstein.

Bernstein, 30, was injured in the first round of eliminations Sunday in Englishtown, N.J., when his Top Fuel dragster veered out of control during a run and flipped over the outside concrete guardwall.

Bernstein has spent the past four days in Robert Wood Johnson University Medical Center in New Brunswick, N.J., where doctors determined on Tuesday that Bernstein's injury would not require surgery.

"Brandon will be fitted with a (back) brace that will immobilize the neck and upper back and will begin the road to recovery," his father said in a prepared statement. "At the present time, he is still in a great amount of pain and pain management is a major focus.

"He will continue to be in a great amount of pain for the next couple of weeks, we expect. Whenever he is able to walk with the brace and manage the pain, he will be moved."

On Wednesday, Brandon was able to take a short walk around his hospital room while wearing the brace that is designed to support his head and neck and immobilize his upper back.

Kenny Bernstein, who won 35 national events and two NHRA Top Fuel championships in the red dragster before retiring at the end of last season, said he would come out of retirement and drive the car in his son's absence -- but made it clear he would step aside as soon as Brandon was ready to return to the cockpit.

"We will monitor his progress, but doctors want the injury to totally heal before he gets back into the racecar," Kenny said. "That healing time is really tough to pin down, however we anticipate that it will take several months.

"We do want to be clear that the very second Brandon is cleared medically, he will jump back into the car."

Kenny Bernstein politely declined, through a team publicist, an interview request by the Sun. Team spokeswoman Susie Arnold said Kenny would stay with Brandon in New Jersey until he has to leave for this weekend's O'Reilly Summer Nationals in Topeka, Kan., which begin Friday.

Brandon Bernstein won three of the first eight Top Fuel races of the season and is 94 points behind defending champion Larry Dixon.

"There's quite a few racetracks I haven't won at and I'm not losing any sleep over it," Dixon said. "You just try and do well each track you're at and go from there. If you get it, great, if not, then we try again next year.

"It took Dale Earnhardt 25 years to win the Daytona 500 -- I just hope it doesn't take me that long to win Topeka."

Anderson, whose Pontiac Grand Am is owned by Las Vegas businessman Ken Black, earned 20 bonus points for establishing the records and moved back into the Pro Stock points lead. Anderson holds a 10-point edge over Kurt Johnson going into this weekend's Summer Nationals.

'It's great to be leading the pack," said Anderson, who won for the first time since Las Vegas on April 6. "Kurt (Johnson) and I are going to have some great battles all the way to the end and neither one of us is going to back down, I can guarantee you that.

"But we're like brothers; we spent a lot of time together when I worked for Warren (Johnson) and there's no one I enjoy racing more. It's neat when you can beat him but it also hurts a little more when you're the one that gets beat."

The PSCA and Outlaw Eliminators will hold a test-and-tune session from 5:30-9:45 p.m. Friday and "Midnight Mayhem" will take over from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.

The PSCA and Outlaw Eliminators will be on the track from 5:30-11 p.m. Saturday and beginning at noon Sunday. Eliminations in all classes start at 7 p.m. Sunday.