While the NASCAR world is abuzz about Tony Stewart’s back injury that will keep him out of at least the first part of the 2016 Sprint Cup Series season, one of the drag-racing world’s legends happened to be a key part of the story.

In Jerry Bonkowski’s Feb. 4 article for NBC Sports, Don “The Snake” Prudhomme shared what happened when he and Stewart were riding all-terrain vehicles along with equally high-profile motorsports personalities Jeff Gordon, Ray Evernham, Greg Biffle, and Rusty Wallace and car collector Ron Pratte last Sunday in the Southern California desert.

Prudhomme described to Bonkowski how the friends found Stewart, who was missing for an estimated hour and half from the group. Stewart somehow had motored onto another path in the sand dunes (evidently something that happens easily) and landed hard after catching some air.

 “We were riding these sand rails. We do that quite a bit. We were all together. What really happened is, it isn’t hard to get split off from one another. In other words, if a guy makes a left turn and you’re not watching his flags or there’s dust or something, you can make a right turn and kind of get lost. So we got mixed up and [Stewart] was probably missing for an hour and a half from the pack, at least. He was missing. He was not there. We figured maybe he got hooked up with one of the other guys,” Prudhomme said.

They took a break and were comparing notes with one another, and that’s when no one could account for Stewart’s whereabouts. Then, Prudhomme told Bonkowski, a rider zipped up and told them, “Hey, one of your buddies is hurt over on the other side of the hill.”

They chased over and found Stewart, lying on his back in the sand – which Prudhomme said “was the most comfortable place you could lay in the soft sand with a bad back.”

He contradicted published reports that said Stewart had flipped his buggy:  “It wasn’t like it flipped over. I’ve heard people say it flipped over. No, it didn’t flip over. It just came down so hard that it messed his back up. [Stewart] wasn’t driving reckless or crazy or anything else. He just happened to hit this [sand] ramp, and the way it came down . . . it was a lot taller or higher up than he probably realized. And it came down and crashed.”

He elaborated: “What happens in the dunes, there was kind of a big mound and he flew over it and came down hard on the shocks. In other words, it bottomed itself out. What happened then, it drove the seat up into his a--, basically. It was like, BAM! He hit really hard, but we were running pretty fast.”

When his friends reached him, Stewart told them his back was hurt, and Prudhomme said they “made sure he could move all his legs and everything, so everything was good there.” He said Stewart was conscious and alert the entire time. “He was hurting, and we were all concerned about him,” Prudhomme said. “But he wasn’t like knocked out or anything like that. He was totally coherent, totally everything. It’s just his back was screwed up. None of us realized how bad it was.

“I just hope he’s going to be all right. He wasn’t doing anything crazy. Those things can run 110 miles an hour pretty easy on the sand.  . . . You know Tony,” Prudhomme said. “He’s a tough son-of-a-bitch.”

Evernham directed the rescue.

Prudhomme said Evernham “is a real good guy, a real responsible guy. He’s been around situations like this before. Basically we got (Tony) into Ron’s cart, and Ron drove him real slowly out of there. (Tony) was holding himself up, as if his a-- was real sore.

“Ron has a place in the area, so he had his helicopter fly over and land on this pavement because he couldn’t land on the sand. Tony had his arm around my shoulder and had another arm around Ray’s shoulder and Gordon was holding him up by the belt. He was walking real slow and we got him into the helicopter and laid him in the back seat. Ray got in the helicopter to go to the hospital. The pilot said he was going to Palm Springs Hospital and got on the radio. Ray was the best guy for the job, so he went with Tony and looked over Tony until midnight.”

Ever the irreverent rogue, Prudhomme wisecracked that the next day Stewart “needed a shave and a bath, I know that!”

He told Bonkowski, “Ron and I went over to the hospital to see him and we sat in the room and he was showing us X-rays and talking. Tony’s Tony. He looked at me like he could just get up and walk out of there, but he couldn’t. But he looked great.”

Neither Stewart nor his doctors at a Charlotte-area hospital would have agreed with comedian Billy Crystal’s “Fernando" character popularized on “Saturday Night Live” that “It is better to look good than to feel good.”  

The driver of the No. 14 Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing underwent surgery for a burst fracture of the L1 vertebra.

Stewart spokesman Mike Arning said in a prepared statement that no timetable has been set for Stewart’s return but that he is expected to make a full recovery.

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