A.J. Rosini’s Heroic Comeback to NASCAR After Seizure in February

A.J. Rosini (right) running toward the left side of Ty Gibbs' No. 54 Toyota after completing a right-side tire change during the Mobil 1 301 at New Hampshire. | David Rosenblum | Lumen Digital Agency for Toyota GAZOO Racing

In this weekend's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway, tire changer A.J. Rosini will mark his 10th race back since a scary medical issue sidelined him just before the start of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. In a video interview on the Joe Gibbs Racing YouTube Channel, the rear changer for the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing team opened up about the ailment that led to him missing a large portion of the season.

"In February, I had a seizure," Rosini explained. "I was in bed with my wife. I woke up, it was like 7 in the morning, [and I] started feeling kind of weird. I felt like I couldn't breathe. So, I woke her up and told her I was having trouble breathing. And I was like, 'Alright, let's go to the hospital.' She gets up to go to the closet to get some clothes out. I sat up on the edge of the bed, had my head in my hands and everything, and just wiped out."

From here, everything is a blur for Rosini, but as he began to seize at the edge of the bed, the scene became very frightening, very quickly.

"Started having a seizure, fell right off the bed, and hit my head on the ground, broke my nose," Rosini said. "From what she told me, I was out for about 30 seconds. Came back to it, and I had no idea what had happened."

As Rosini awoke from the seizure, he tried piecing together what had just happened. He noticed his wife crying and screaming in the other room. It was at this point that he assumed they had an intruder in their house.

"And so, I see this going on, and I was like someone must be breaking into the house, something is going on in the living room, so I pop up and I take off running into the living room," Rosini recalled, "and she is yelling at me to lie back down on the ground. And I was like, 'Yeah, I do feel pretty weird. So, that doesn't sound so bad.' So, I obliged."

Emergency Medical Services arrived and began working with Rosini, where he was diagnosed with a broken nose, and EMS determined he likely suffered a seizure. While Rosini had no official medical history of seizures, he said the situation felt eerily similar.

"I had no history of seizures. Knowing what we know now, I think I probably had a few over the years, and just didn't know it," Rosini said. "I think it's pretty easy for it to go undetected in a lot of people. I think it was happening in my sleep. There's the postictal phase of a seizure, it's like the aftermath of a seizure."

Rosini continued, "Some of the things I experienced in that postictal phase, I was very familiar with, which is part of one of the symptoms too of it. Everything is kind of deja vu. But I really felt like that was something I remembered at multiple points in my life. Like your brain is disconnected from your body. Almost like you're driving a car, versus you are the car, is the best way I can find to describe it. I think I've had some in the past, but it was never caught before or never noticed."

While it was a scary situation, Rosini was happy that the only injury he walked away from the situation with was a broken nose. Rosini required surgery on his nose, which he felt would keep him out for the Daytona 500, but he felt he'd be able to return for the second race of the season at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

However, those plans were dashed after a post-Daytona meeting with his neurologist, who informed him that, post-seizure, athletes aren't approved to get back to competition for six months.

Initially, for Rosini, "It was a hard pill to swallow."

From humble beginnings in the racing industry, where he fabricated structures for Team Penske's IndyCar team haulers in 2018, Rosini, a former High School athlete, had worked his way to being a front tire changer on one of the top teams in NASCAR, the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team.

Austin Maloney, a fellow tire changer, was attempting, like Rosini, to make a name for himself on a pit crew in NASCAR. While he had proven to be a really fast changer, he was among the Joe Gibbs Racing developmental pit crews, which are farmed out to other teams in the NASCAR Cup Series. In those situations, it's harder to shine as the overall performance of the teams pales in comparison to that of Joe Gibbs Racing.

Rosini's unfortunate medical situation paved the way for Maloney, one of his good friends, to receive the opportunity of a lifetime.

"Austin got pulled up onto the 11 to fill my spot there. Austin and I have known each other; we were good buddies, I would say. I told him on a number of occasions that he just needed an opportunity on a house car," Rosini said. "Like, 'Man, you are fast. You just need an opportunity, and you're going to make the most of it. We know it.' And I didn't think I'd be giving him that opportunity, but I worked with him a lot. There's always some chemistry things with the team, like, it's such a nuance-driven sport, I guess you could say."

Rosini would help Maloney learn the body movements he needed to make during pit stops with the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team, which allowed him to avoid colliding with team members to maximize pit road performance. Being able to contribute to the team's performance while being sidelined helped Rosini stay positive.

Until this weekend, when Maloney and Jack Man, Joel Bouganon, will begin serving a two-race suspension for a detached wheel at Bristol Motor Speedway, he has spent the entirety of the 2025 season servicing Denny Hamlin's No. 11 car.

"It was easy to remain positive when you saw the work you were putting in with the team, even though you aren't on the team right now, you're putting the work in with them and seeing them find success," Rosini said. "Especially Austin. To me, that was cool. He was on one of our development cars, got pulled up onto a house car, and immediately out of the gate there, just had an awesome year. And that was really cool to see. You always want to be a good team player, and that's easy."

While he found solace in helping Maloney and the No. 11 team prepare for their upcoming races and was able to keep his own skills sharp as he was approved by his neurologist to continue practicing pit stops throughout the week, Rosini was focused on returning to pit road once the six-month waiting period following his seizure elapsed.

Fittingly, the crew member, who got his start in the IndyCar ranks, got his first taste back on pit road in the NASCAR Cup Series Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Rosini would compete at Indianapolis and the following weekend at Iowa Speedway for the No. 4 Front Row Motorsports team, which is one of the teams that leases developmental Joe Gibbs Racing pit crews.

After working his way back into things on pit road, Rosini was elevated back to a Joe Gibbs Racing 'House Car', the No. 54 Toyota driven by Ty Gibbs beginning with the August 10 event at Watkins Glen International.

In the seven races with the No. 54 team, Gibbs has collected three of his nine top-10 finishes this season, and was on the verge of a potential victory at Bristol Motor Speedway before the driver made a mistake trying to get to pit road late in the event.

While he no longer has a hand in Denny Hamlin's pursuit of his first NASCAR Cup Series championship, Rosini is now looking to help play a part in the first career NASCAR Cup Series win for Ty Gibbs. But the fact that he's even back on pit road at all following a terrifying situation in February is nothing short of a miracle, and it's a testament to the resilience and tenacity of Rosini.