Dale Jr. on his recovery: "I feel like I'm in great hands"

“I’m feeling so much better and I’m glad to be at the track,” Earnhardt told a group of reporters Saturday morning at Dover (Del.) International Speedway. “I wish I was driving. I’d feel more useful if I was in the car.

“I wanted to come back and I’m glad to be here.”

Hendrick Motorsports announced in late August that Earnhardt would sit out the remainder of the 2016 Sprint Cup Series season while he continued to recover from symptoms from a concussion incurred in the August race at Michigan.

Earnhardt said he has absolute trust in Dr. Micky Collins, executive director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Sports Medicine Concussion Program, who is leading his recovery and directing his therapy.

“I feel pretty good about what he’s done with me in the past. That gives me a lot of confidence about this situation,” Earnhardt said. “You got to believe in this; you got to believe in the therapy 100 percent.

“I feel like I’m in great, great hands. He’s amazing. Micky’s a great guy, he reaches out to me sometimes several times a week. He’s always tweaking and changing the therapy. I’ve learned a ton through the experience.”

Earnhardt said he will know when he’s ready to get back behind the wheel of his No. 88 Chevrolet.

“It’s not one of those things that has a schedule,” he said. “You don’t know when you’re going to be, ‘Oh, I’m good. Let’s go do this.’

“I have been driving a simulator a little bit and it’s not the same thing as driving a race car. It does challenge me mentally and challenges the issues and the symptoms.”

Team officials said they expect Earnhardt may well attend all the remaining Cup races on the schedule this season.