MOORESVILLE, N.C. - Jerry Nadeau still has his race shop in the heart of stock car country, but there are no race cars. He uses it to store his motor coach, a boat and a passenger car.

There's a toolbox in one corner, and video games are stacked high in his office. There are posters on the wall, race helmets clutter the floor, and fan mail piling up on his desk. He can look at the trophy in the reception area for winning the 2000 NAPA 500 at Atlanta and still remember every detail about that day.

He stops by the shop two or three times a week to play racing games on the computer. And it's no ordinary computer. It's complete with sound, steering wheel, stick shifter, gas pedal and authentic racing seat - everything to make a racing lap seem as real as possible.

For nearly two years, it's as close as Nadeau can get to a race car.

A crash at the Richmond International Raceway left the driver with a head injury that's been slow to heal. His speech has improved since the crash, but his words still are painfully slow. Nadeau spent his entire life in racing's fast lane, often enjoying life at 180 mph. Then he almost died there. In a flash, the time it took his Chevrolet to slip in some water or oil and bounce off the first turn wall, everything that seemed so incredibly easy, so wonderfully common, ended.

After the crash, all he wanted was a return to the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, but he now realizes that's probably not going to happen. All that's left is a desperate need of normalcy.

"Sometimes it's hard to deal with life. When I woke up and I got out of the hospital, I told myself I would have been better off dead," Nadeau said. "I love my daughter; I love my wife, but I feel like I can't function with every day life. It's a bad deal. It's not like a splinter in your finger that's annoying. A brain injury is something that stays with you the rest of his life."

No braking

Despite the crashes, stock car racing never slows down

So much of Ernie Irvan's life changed after two horrific crashes at the Michigan International Speedway, but some things remain the same. He hated traffic before his racing career ended; he still hates it.

That's one reason why Irvan, like so many other injured drivers before him, doesn't go to many races.

"I love this sport, but I'm not really a race fan," he said. "It's hard to be a race fan. I hate to fight traffic and things like that, so I just watch it on TV."

NASCAR doesn't slow its wheels very often. The death of seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt proved that. A week after he died on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, the race at Rockingham, N.C., proceeded as scheduled.

For those who are only maimed in a crash, the sport doesn't seem to slow down long enough to take notice.

"At first that bothered me," Irvan said. "The sport has to speed along without you. It's part of life. They have to carry on. There was an emptiness when they went on without me, but I understood it."

Irvan and Nadeau now are friends. They eat lunch during the week while their old friends are at work on the racetrack. They ride go-carts and play video games. They have a connection only a few can understand.

They were the lucky ones: They survived crashes. They belong to a special fraternity of drivers whose careers ended suddenly, and memory of their presence in the sport ended just as fast. Just ask Loy Allen. He won the pole position for the 1994 Daytona 500, but an injury not only pushed him out of racing five years later, but out of the sport's conscience as well.

The same for Ken Ragan, Mike Alexander and Stanley Smith. Remember them?

Allen, whose family founded Office Depot, suffered a career-ending head injury at Rockingham. Ragan's career hit the wall - literally - with a broken neck at Talladega. Alexander suffered a head injury in an off-season race at Pensacola, Fla. Smith nearly died from a head injury at Talladega. And NASCAR never skipped a beat.

Irvan has grown to accept his future away from the race car. Nadeau still wrestles with it. While both know there's life away from the fast lane, neither are sure what life that will be.

"We've talked about getting jobs, but neither of us are cut out to work at McDonald's," Irvan said. "But I think we can both work at Wal-Mart. We can be the guys who greet you at the front door.

"I feel for Jerry and his family. He's had a head injury, but what are you going to do now? You don't want to face reality. If you can avoid reality by saying it won't happen to me, but it can happen to you. I happened to me. It happened to Jerry. You pray it won't happen to anyone else."

Nadeau is still looking for answers.

"I'm no different than anyone else: I'm trying to earn a paycheck," said Nadeau, who'd like to get a job with NASCAR as part of its diversity program or as an official in the modified series. "What am I going to do? Where is my next paycheck going to come from? I haven't talked to anybody about what I'm going to do. I'm ready to figure out what I'm going to do. I couldn't face life. Even driving to the store or paying a bill, I couldn't function. I was amazed how much you have to do (in the real world). You've got to cash checks, go shopping. It's not easy.

"I'm comfortable knowing I probably won't be back. I don't think my injury is going to get better over night. It's been nearly two years and I've gotten a little better. But it's still going to be long term. When I wake up every morning, I ask myself am I any better? I am, but it's so slow."

Park fights through

When Steve Park was injured during a Busch Series race in 2001, quitting was never an option. He worked through his head injury, and he eventually made a return a year later.

Doctors and rehabilitation were tough enough, but the haunting questions and doubt still follow him. He's happy to be back on the Craftsman Truck Series, but he's bitter.

"The media basically ran me out of the Cup," he said. "I truly believe that. The worst part is, when you come back from an injury and you finish seventh, instead of everyone saying, 'What a great run,' or all positive things, they say, 'He could have won that race if he didn't get hurt.' Bad news is good news."

Moments after Park won the pole position for the Nextel Cup Series race at California in 2003, Ricky Craven, himself a head injury survivor, warned that Park would be judged differently.

"He will have to do it better than everyone else," Craven said. "The perception is every bit as bad as the injury itself."

When Park crashed on the first lap of the race, the stories that followed eventually led to his dismissal at Dale Earnhardt Inc. He wound up in the truck series.

"Everybody wanted to know if I got back in the race car too soon. I don't think so. I actually waited to get back in the car until I was absolutely sure, after I passed the impact test and different tests. I didn't want to endanger myself or any competitor. I went over and above every expectation to get back in the race car again. I did everything NASCAR wanted me to do, over and above that," Park said.

"And for some people, it wasn't good enough."

Craven suffered a similar head injury in a crash at the Texas Motor Speedway in 1998. He returned for three races with another team later in the year and he bounced around with four other teams before finding a new home in the truck series this year.

Park now understands how the business works. He knows if you get hurt, it doesn't take long for the sport to forget you. And if you come back, the sport never forgets.

"In my whole career, since I was 15 years old, I've never been under fire," he said." When you're looking for a job, it's hard to have that hanging over you. It's a label that you wear. That's why I feel for Jerry, for Ricky, for Ernie, for myself. It's a tough situation to be in. All I can do is win races and look at the trophies on my shelf.

"There are a lot of people in this sport who can't say that, and they've never been hurt."

It took nearly four years, but Park finally earned some redemption by winning the American Racing Wheels 200 for the Craftsman Truck Series last month at the California Speedway.

"From the time I came back, I knew I could race and win races. It seemed like nobody else had confidence. I'm hoping this puts closure to it. It's been a three-year book," he said.

"It's a story of winning races, getting hurt, losing your job, struggling back to winning races again. This is the closure of the chapter in that book. I wasn't going to give up until I reached this level of winning races again. I got hurt winning races, and now I'm back to winning races again."

Best days still ahead

Ernie Irvan won 15 races and $10.2 million in his Nextel Cup Series career, and he was voted as one of NASCAR's top 50 drivers during its 50-year anniversary celebration.

And yet, Irvan hopes his best work is still ahead.

" I'm one of NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers; it's unbelievable I was chosen for something like that," he said. "But how many people really understand that and know it? How many people suffer from a head injury? Every 24 seconds there's another head injury in this country and they're all different. I'm a head injury survivor. Jerry is a head injury survivor. I decided I need to start this foundation to make people aware to wear helmets and to prevent head injuries. If I can save one head injury in my lifetime, that would be worth it. I want to be something bigger than one of NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers in my lifetime. That's my goal."

Irvan now works with Autoleaf, a company that makes side curtain airbags for cars, with the Race2Safety. It's a foundation committed to educating people how to deal with and prevent head injuries. It also hopes to develop helmets for children.

"It's all about finding something that fits," he said. "I'm a parent and I force my kids to wear helmets. But it's not going to do much. It falls off. We need to develop something that really fits and something that looks cool so kids will wear them."

Irvan is happy NASCAR has placed a greater emphasis on safety following Earnhardt's death. Drivers now are required to wear a head-and-neck restraint collar and most walls are now protected by Steel and Foam Energy Reduction barriers. He also wonders if either would have helped him.

"Would the head-and-neck restraint have helped me? Absolutely. Who knows how much, but it certainly would have helped me," he said.

He originally was hurt on Aug. 20, 1994, when he blew out a right-front tire and crashed. It took him almost two years to work through vision problems and dizziness associated with his injury to make a comeback. He won two races in 1996 and another one in 1997, including an emotional trip to Victory Lane at Michigan.

In 1999 - five years to the day after his first crash - he wrecked again at Michigan and suffered another head injury. This time there was no coming back.

"Obviously, I didn't accept it after the first accident," Irvan said. "I came back and won three more times. It was phenomenal. As far as being competitive, I can't do that anymore. I had a great career while it lasted. The smartest thing I could do is to get out. I want to be here for my family, be a part of my family. When my daughter goes on her first date, that person is going to have to come in and talk to me. That's the reason I said the smartest thing I could do is retire and be there for my family. I didn't want somebody standing over my bed saying I was going to be a vegetable the rest of his life, that this is the best it's going to be."

His attitude about racing - and the Michigan racetrack - now is positive. Racing is a way he can promote his foundation; Michigan is the speedway where his life was spared.

"I miss it every day, but I don't miss it enough to think I could still do it," he said. "After my first crash, my doctor told me if I ever drove my little girl to school again, that would be a successful recovery. I had tears in my eyes and I told him, 'You don't understand.' I was crying. Racing is all I knew."

Irvan said his recovery from the first accident at Michigan was a miracle. When he crashed the second time, he didn't want to push his luck again.

"I could look at Michigan as the track that nearly cost me my life, but what's the use in that?" Irvan said. "I look at it as being the track that saved my life. I mean, why is it that the guy who put a (tracheotomy) in my throat was sitting right there in (Turns) 1 and 2 when I crashed? How many times is a medic the first guy to the race car after an accident? Not very often. They had a helicopter there. A doctor was the first guy to the car. They had a trachea kit, but the knife was gone. Somebody just happened to have a razor blade and they used that. He had to do it all within two minutes of the crash while I was still sitting in the car. It's amazing how that all happened to save my life.

"It makes you think: Why am I still here? I don't know, but maybe it's to start this foundation. I've had multiple head injuries and I can still put the word out. I'm going to take this and run with it. There's a purpose in life, and obviously I had a purpose to raise my family and drive race cars. Now I have a new purpose. I could feel sorry for myself, but what good will that do?"