Steve Park Returns to NASCAR - A New Beginning

Triumph And Tragedy
Other racing comebacks
Ricky Craven crashed at Texas Motor Speedway in 1997 and suffered a concussion that forced him to miss two races. It was the next season, however, before Craven realized the full consequences of his injury.

Just four races into the '98 season, Craven suffered post concussion syndrome and had to sit out 12 more events. When he returned to his Hendrick Motorsports ride, Craven ran just four more races before resigning from the team.

Craven almost disappeared from the radar by bouncing around the circuit with three different team owners in '99 and 2000. He found his stride when he landed with Cal Wells' PPI Motorsports and led the team to Victory Lane at Martinsville last season. It was the first Cup win for both Wells and Craven.

Smith and Park became a team again, spending up to five days a week, two hours a day, together on the path to recovery. When the two started the workouts, Park's stamina and flexibility were almost nonexistent, Smith says. Many of the activities were simple, like having Park sit on a workout ball without falling over, in order to regain his balance. From there it progressed to Park lifting his arms and legs and doing light weight training. Simply bouncing and catching a basketball or racquetball were exercises in frustration early on.

"I look back on that and at the time it was so challenging for me," says Park. "I was almost breaking a sweat and concentrating so hard on trying to catch these balls and bounce them off the ceiling. I look back on it now, and I'm like, it was such a child-like game, and back then it was such a struggle and took so much concentration to make it work. Now I look at it and it's so easy to do, but it was so child-like back then that I wouldn't even think about doing it now."

Once, while Park and Smith were taking a break during a workout, they watched a dog jump rope on a morning television show and establish a world's record for dogs by jumping 74 times. Park had worked his way up to 50 jumps at the time and Smith kidded Park about being bested by a dog. Park laughs at the story now, but it was a source of motivation at the time.

"I was determined that I was going to jump rope 74 times," Park recalls. "I mean, I worked every day on doing that. One day I got to 74, then I got to 75 and beat the dog. I threw the rope down and said I was never going to jump rope again in my life. You know, you're not racing, so how do you keep your spirits up? Just by wanting to beat a dog in jump rope."

Clearly, the one constant through Park's recovery, through the high points and the low points, was his determination. "He was almost determined to the point that I couldn't get him to stop," Smith says. "He would get so frustrated that he couldn't do something. I noticed this the first time I worked with Steve, after the first injury, that if he can't do something, instead of coming back and trying to do it again the next day, he'll sit there until he's so fatigued -although he still doesn't do it-that he'll sit there until there's nothing left in him. He's so determined to succeed. To me, that's why, when he's had these major injuries, he's come back so fast from both of them."

Eventually, Park was back to normal, able to shun the eyeglasses and able to do the workouts like a man fully recovered. His speech lagged behind somewhat, but today even that is almost 100 percent recovered. There was one thing left to do: He had to prove to himself he was rehabilitated well enough to get back in a race car. That led him to Dr. Mark Lovell in Pittsburgh, the doctor who regularly tests drivers in the CART series. Lovell told Park that everything tested fine-his eyesight, his reaction time, his brain function. Basically everything that dictated whether or not he could return to racing was OK.

Returning To Action
Park's comeback happened at the same Darlington track where it all nearly ended that September weekend. It wasn't planned for it to be that way; it was just the way circumstances worked out.

During his Darlington comeback, Park started fourth and quickly worked his way into the lead, driving hard and fast on the tricky Darlington track while leading 19 laps. It was clear he had something to prove after six months on the sidelines. While passing the lapped car of Stacy Compton between Turns 3 and 4, though, Park's car and Compton's drifted together, leading to a crash that collected the car of Ricky Craven, ending what could have been Park's storybook return.