NASCAR legend Fred Lorenzen has posthumously been diagnosed with CTE.

The former Daytona 500 winner nicknamed “The Golden Boy” dealt with a harsh mental decline in the later stages of his life that has been officially attributed to CTE.

Lorenzen died in 2024 just before his 90th birthday.

“I have two kids. He never really got to be a grandparent,” his daughter Amanda told USA Today.

“I almost feel like it was 35 years of just constant heartbreak of some form.”

And after donating his body to science, researchers at the Boston University CTE Center diagnosed him with stage 3 CTE.

He is the first Nascar driver to be diagnosed with the disease.

“It’s overwhelming to get to where we are today,” Amanda said.

“There were so many stages of grief, of loss and not understanding things. It makes me understand why.

“It doesn’t make anything better at all, but it makes me able to understand why things happened the way they happened.”

CTE is a disease that develops from repeated head injuries that is largely associated with professional football.

A recent study from Boston University and Harvard Medical School found that around one in four former NFL players develop CTE.

But the understanding of the disease isn’t as in-depth in motorsports.

However, Lorenzen’s son wouldn’t be shocked to see more former racers get diagnosed with CTE.

“In my head, it was like, we already know that,” Chris said.

“Just in my opinion, if we’re seeing all these former NFL players with CTE from head injuries, how would NASCAR be any different? This is going high speeds, into a wall, into another car. It’s the same thing.

“I think we know what the results of other drivers donating their brain is going to be. So, the question is, can we somehow help these injured drivers earlier? Because our dad didn’t have any help.”