CHARLOTTE — Researchers diagnosed Hall of Fame NASCAR driver Fred Lorenzen with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, nearly two years after his death.
The diagnosis marks NASCAR’s first known case of the disease.
Lorenzen’s family shared the results of his post-mortem brain tissue analysis Tuesday after donating his brain for research.
Researchers diagnosed him with stage 3 CTE, the second most severe of four stages.
Lorenzen died at age 89 on Dec. 18, 2024. He lived with dementia for 20 years, but his family said he struggled for years before he was diagnosed.
“My dad struggled for many years, long before he was diagnosed with dementia in his 60s,” his daughter, Amanda Lorenzen Gardstrom, said in a release. “Watching him go through that, and experiencing the impact it had on me and our family was incredibly difficult and beyond heartbreaking. While he may be the first race car driver diagnosed with CTE, we know from outreach to other drivers that he isn’t the only one suffering.”
After their father’s diagnosis, Lorenzen’s children announced they would be donating $1 million to the Concussion & CTE Foundation to advance CTE research and help other drivers and their families find care.
According to the National Institutes of Health, CTE is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder often found in people involved in contact sports or the military. Researchers say it’s caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries and can be associated with dementia. Currently there is no cure, and the disease can only be discovered after death.