Steve Park Returns to NASCAR - A New Beginning

Park can recall the race that day, but nothing just before or just after being hit. He thinks the steering wheel, not securely locked onto the steering shaft, came off in his hands. Given his prerace habit of tugging on his safety belts and pulling the steering wheel back and forth to make sure it's locked in place, that seems as plausible as any explanation.

While the exact events that day are unknown, the crash's effect on Park's life is as real and as tangible as the crash itself. "Really, a simple swerve to the left like that, it probably shouldn't even have been an accident," says Park, "but it turned into a catastrophe."

Amazingly, Park felt almost no pain from the Darlington crash, outside of some general soreness. But take away an athlete's eyesight-especially one like Park who had never worn glasses-and you've threatened his livelihood and way of life. So the double vision right after the crash was the one thing that pitched Park into a world of doubt and uncertainty. He was able to see relatively well from about the waistline up, with glasses; but from that point down, he saw double and suffered from blurred vision. Getting back into a race car was an uncertain proposition.

NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. banished Curtis Turner from NASCAR in 1961, setting the stage for Turner's triumphant comeback four years later. Turner, who had lost a showdown with France in a failed attempt to unionize NASCAR drivers, was victorious in his seventh start after his reinstatement by France.

Turner's comeback victory at Rockingham, North Carolina, on October 31, 1965, followed his previous win by six-and-a-half years. The Roanoke, Virginia, native had last won at Concord, North Carolina, on March 8, 1959. The Rockingham win was Turner's last in NASCAR's top division, however. Turner, one of the most colorful characters in NASCAR's early days, died in a plane crash in 1970.

Park visited doctors in New York City and at Duke University and was told the same thing: Given time, the eyesight would return. The racer in him left no room for patience. "You're like, 'Well, give me a shot, give me a pill, give me something to make me better,'" Park says. "There's nothing you can do other than just wait it out."

Still, Park began to think that maybe waiting wouldn't be enough, that his career had actually ended that day at Darlington. "I was praying every day that it would get better," Park says of his vision. "I just knew I couldn't race with the eyesight I had in the early stages." He began to have doubts. What if I'm stuck with this eyesight? What if every doctor I've seen is wrong? What if I can't race? What will I do? He had been racing since age 10 and felt that his options were limited.

"That was the motivation because I realized, 'Well, I don't know anything else, and I better get back to doing what I love to do,'" he recalls. "It just made me work harder and just pray all the doctors were right, that it was just a matter of time. They had seen the injuries a lot more than I had; but you look at it and realize you can't see as good as you want to-you can't race that way-and if that never changes, then you won't race. That's probably the darkest point I reached."

Ernie Irvan's 15-win Winston Cup career reached its low point and its high point at Michigan International Speedway.In '94 Irvan crashed during practice at the track and was initially given a less than 10 percent chance of survival. Not only did he return to win three more Winston Cup races, but, in '97, Irvan won at the same Michigan track that nearly killed him.

Irvan chose to retire, though, after a crash at Talladega in '98 and another one at Michigan in '99. Three head injuries in five years were enough to persuade him to give up driving at age 40.

Road To Recovery
The road back involved more than getting his eyesight restored. Park had to work on his balance, his eye-hand coordination, his stamina, his strength, his speech. It was a long, tough road to recovery. Initially, Park made regular visits to a rehabilitation center in Charlotte. He would work there for two hours, then go home and work for four more hours. Therapists at the rehab center, unaware of his extra work, were amazed at his progress.

By mid-November, two months after the crash, he was released from rehab to begin working out with his personal trainer, Walt Smith, who owns two Charlotte area fitness centers and serves as pit coach for DEI and jackman for Park's Pennzoil team. Smith scheduled their workouts around Park's speech and vision therapists.

Smith had been hired by Dale Earnhardt in 1998, just before Park crashed during practice at Atlanta and missed 15 races during his rookie season, suffering several broken bones, including a broken leg. Smith had helped Park through that recovery. "Then we went to a two-year period where Steve became just phenomenally in shape," says Smith. "I've worked with a lot of drivers over the years, but Steve's determination and his actual strength was really, really good. Then to come back off his last injury and just to see what had happened to him as far as his balance, his hand-eye coordination, it was really gut wrenching."