Fred Lorenzen diagnosed posthumously with CTE, first known NASCAR driver
Boston University researchers found Stage 3 CTE in the late NASCAR Hall of Famer; his family is donating $1m to fund driver CTE research.
Fred Lorenzen, the NASCAR Hall of Famer who won the 1965 Daytona 500, has been diagnosed posthumously with Stage 3 chronic traumatic encephalopathy by the Boston University CTE Center, making him the first known NASCAR driver diagnosed with the disease. His children shared the results with USA Today, which published Tuesday, Reuters reported.
Lorenzen died on 18 December 2024, aged 89, after two decades with dementia. Dr Thor Stein, the BU neuropathologist who studied his brain, said: “Mr. Lorenzen had cortical-sparing CTE, which is the first identified subtype of the disease” — a subtype seen in about 10 per cent of cases, per Sports Illustrated. Daughter Amanda said the diagnosis “makes me able to understand why things happened the way they happened”; son Chris added: “This is going high speeds, into a wall, into another car. It’s the same thing.”
The family is donating $1 million to the Concussion & CTE Foundation to advance CTE research and help struggling drivers’ families find care; the gift will establish the Fred Lorenzen Memorial HelpLine. The family hoped NASCAR would join them in researching CTE among drivers, but say NASCAR has not helped and did not respond to USA Today’s request for comment.
Lorenzen won 26 NASCAR Cup races between 1956 and 1967 and entered the Hall of Fame in 2015. The diagnosis comes weeks after Darrell Waltrip stepped back from public life following a frontotemporal degeneration diagnosis “complicated by possible” CTE.
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