Richmond crash changed driver's life forever

MOORESVILLE, N.C.

Pictures, posters and other keepsakes adorn a wall in Jerry Nadeau's office. Helmets, diecast cars and T-shirts sit on shelves, untouched except by dust.

Among this montage of memories, two framed items stand out.

One is a photo of Nadeau's car beside runner-up Dale Earnhardt's black No. 3 moments after Nadeau won the 2000 season finale at Atlanta. Earnhardt is saluting Nadeau on his only NASCAR Winston Cup victory.

"That is the ultimate picture," Nadeau said with a widening grin.

Below that photo is a newspaper clipping from the race. A large picture captures him in Victory Lane, cheeks rosy and bulging, smile toothy. He and Jeff Gordon are celebrating.

The headline proclaims: "Happily ever after."

If only it were true.

A head injury suffered five years ago today in a crash at Richmond International Raceway turned Nadeau's ultra-focused life into tumult.

Racing defined Nadeau, and even today, he struggles to accept that he'll never compete in NASCAR's top series again.

Born to race

The son of a racer, Nadeau doodled race scenes and checkered flags as a 4-year-old - at least when he wasn't driving a go-kart. He won races before competing in Europe in a step-ladder series to Formula One.

He returned to the U.S. to focus on NASCAR. He reached his goal, won and... it was gone.

Nadeau, fuller in the face and midsection these days, still spends his days pondering and wondering: Why him? What next?

"I need to find something, do something that inspires me," the 37-year-old said. Tucked in a bag on a seat is the uniform he wore during his Atlanta victory. He plans to have it framed.

"Racing was an inspiration to me. It was something that I'll never get back. I've got to find something that is equivalent that I can be happy with."

Spring 2003

Nadeau remembers the days leading to that 2003 Richmond spring race. He tested at Lowe's Motor Speedway and had the "fastest car, by far." He visited injured soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center that week with other drivers. He qualified 12th for the at Richmond race.

He went to the garage early in the final practice session the day before the race so his team could make an adjustment to the car.

"Here, go try this," Nadeau recalled crew chief Ryan Pemberton saying as he sent his driver back out. "I did three or four laps... "And boom."

His memories of the day end there.

A replay caught thick, white smoke trailing Nadeau's spinning car like a comet's tail. Nadeau's car performed a half-spin as it slid up the track before slamming the concrete wall on the driver side.

"I just," Nadeau stops and sighs, "made a mistake."

He blames himself because he found no other explanation. Nothing broke on the car. Numerous viewings of the crash proved inconclusive because the car already was spinning toward the wall when the camera caught it.

Bad timing

Nadeau might still be racing if not for the winter in Lincoln, Neb.

Thirteen inches of snow and 11 days of sub-freezing temperatures that February delayed crash-testing of a new safety barrier being developed by the University of Nebraska's Midwest Roadside Safety Facility.

The test didn't take place until mid-March; more work was needed. Richmond would not have the SAFER barrier in May, as was hoped by series and track officials.

The barrier is now standard at every Cup track. It cushions the contact, hopefully limiting the severity of a driver's injuries.

Richmond installed the barrier in time for its fall race that year, a few months too late for Nadeau.

The impact of his accident remains among the hardest recorded since NASCAR began using crash data recorders in 2002.

The accident sheared three lesions in the right side of his brain, literally tearing it apart. He suffered a partially collapsed left lung, fractured his left shoulder blade and had left-side rib injuries.

Nadeau, in a medically induced coma, remained in critical condition for three days. He did not regain full consciousness for nearly three weeks. He still experiences constant numbness on the left side of his body, though that is about the only physical side effect that remains.

The rehab

A small sign next to the dirt oval track proclaims it Knock 'em, Sock 'em Speedway. To Nadeau, this was home.

He and his late father built the go-kart track on family land in Troutman, N.C., after Nadeau's accident, when no one would put him in a car. This was where he raced his dad and friends. This was his rehab.

Near the sign is where Nadeau once flipped and rolled down the embankment about 8 feet. The drop-off is greater along the backstretch, where Sprint Cup driver David Gilliland rolled down more than 15 feet. Nadeau's father also tumbled down about the same place another time.

"We had some good wrecks here," Nadeau says. "It was just a fun place."

Nadeau's mother, Pauline, says she'd sit under a nearby tree and watch Nadeau and his dad race. Pauline Nadeau recalls a time both men finished with their faces caked in red dirt. Her son's blue eyes shined through the muck, as did her husband's brown eyes.

There are no new memories.

Nadeau's father died in March 2007, about two months after finding out he had a rare form of thyroid cancer.

Nadeau says he lost his best friend, the person who supported him as he tried to find a direction beyond racing - whether by tutoring young drivers or planning a go-kart facility.

"I always try to look into the sky and have him... tell me what I need to do," Nadeau says.

Pauline could see her son's pain when he visited, like he was still looking for his father.

"I could tell everything was hurting him as he looked toward the race track," she said.

Soon, the track could be gone. His parents' land and house are for sale.

But there is hope for Nadeau. Divorced in 2005, he recently became engaged to Amanda Mumpower. The two have been together 11 months, and they're looking at a wedding early next year.

"I looked at her eyes and that was it," Nadeau says. "The thing that I... feel the best is knowing that I've got a purpose and a reason."

Missing racing

Nadeau enjoys poker but admits he's not good.

"I'm honest," he says. "It's hard to bluff."

He also can't pretend that everything is fine without racing.

His attitude changes on the subject depending on the moment. He has plenty of time to debate himself. Wise financial investments and selling his home near Lake Norman, and his boat, for a house in a less-pricy zip code, ensures he doesn't need a job to live day-by-day.

But all that free time can be a curse. When Nadeau is looking for something to do, his thoughts often return to racing.

"There's not a weekend that goes by that I don't think about the NASCAR stuff, and I continually watch," he says in his race shop, which includes two racing simulators, his dad's 1979 black Corvette and Nadeau's mud-speckled go-kart.

Later, at a table in a small café tucked in a strip mall, Nadeau admits that the crash feels only like yesterday.

"I'm still depressed," he said as he stared out the window. "I'm still down. I'm still like, why did this happen?

"Something's programmed into everybody's body. I feel that I was programmed to race. I still think on a given day, I can probably go out there for 10 laps and run around with the leaders. My problem is, I've got to get my fire back, and I haven't seemed to found it yet."

Nadeau's attitude changed about half hour later, after leaving the restaurant.

"I've already faced the fact that I'm never going to go back there and (race) again," he said, speaking in measured, soft tones as he drove to his mother's home. "I'd love to try one time just for the heck of it, but I've already figured that I'll never do it. I just need to find something else to do."

After visiting his mom's home and seeing the oval dirt track, the desire returns, his voice grows stronger and hope replaces despair.

"I would love to go do a lap around Lowe's," he says. He led the Coca-Cola 600 two different years at the Concord, N.C. race before mechanical problems set in.

"I would love just to have another test just to see if that would spark my engine."

Still a racer

Just inside the front doors of Nadeau's shop sits a cardboard box. As he shows off his foot-high glass trophy for winning the Atlanta race in 2000, he opens the box.

Inside is the beat-up seat Nadeau was strapped to when he crashed at Richmond and the bent steering wheel he clung to as the car skated toward the wall.

"(NASCAR) kept calling me... kept calling me to come get my stuff or if I wanted my stuff," Nadeau says, displaying the flexed steering wheel. "I picked it up a while ago."

What will happen to it?

"Collect dust," Nadeau sighs. "Nothing I can really do. You don't like to live with these memories."

So why does he?

Nadeau pauses.

"It's a part of what I am now."