Aric Almirola to miss 8-12 weeks with broken back

Aric Almirola will be out for eight to 12 weeks with a broken T5 vertebra following last Saturday's crash at Kansas Speedway.

Almirola sustained the injuries during the NASCAR Go Bowling 400 when he collided with Joey Logano's wrecked car.

And Almirola is grateful his injuries are not worse.

"I've got a lot of life ahead of me and I've got a four-year-old and three-year-old at home - I'm not going to do anything to rush myself back in a race car and risk not being able to feel anything from my belly button down for the rest of my life," he said in an interview with ESPN.

The wreck was a scary one that resonated across the NASCAR community, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. commented on the incident in an interview on Thursday.

"[Amirola] is married, has kids. He knows he needs to take care of himself," Earnhardt Jr. said to the Concord (N.C.) Tribune. "The doctors told him how lucky he was, how easily that could have gone the other direction had he gotten spinal cord damage."