Jerry Nadeau has dedicated himself to racing since he was a toddler, so sitting out a year with a head injury is “probably the worst thing in the world” to him. Still, common sense and recent history tell Nadeau that he shouldn’t rush himself back into the car. Nadeau sustained a serious head injury in an accident at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway on May 2 of last year. People close to Nadeau notice improvement in his speech and demeanor every week. But he still can’t feel the left side of his body and his vision isn’t as clear as it was before the crash. “I figure I’m about 75% there,” Nadeau says. “I obviously rattled my cage quite a bit, and I’m just waiting for all the marbles to shake out.” For the moment, Nadeau is getting his racing fix through a sophisticated computer simulator; he’s pretty sure he has raced online against Dale Earnhardt Jr., a noted computer racing fiend who races under an alias. Nadeau also worked as an instructor at a go-kart racing school last weekend. And he’s working out with a trainer three days a week. “I don’t think there’s any doubt he’s coming back,” says Jay Frye, general manager of MBV Motorsports, the team Nadeau was racing for at the time of the wreck. “The question is when.” MBV put Nadeau in a car for a test session in December, with mixed results, and probably will have him test again in the next few months. If that goes well, the next step for Nadeau likely will come not in Cup, but in ARCA or another lower-tier racing series. Fortunately for Nadeau, he doesn’t feel financial pressure to return right away. “I guess I was smart,” he says. “I had a good insurance plan before I even got into Winston (now Nextel) Cup. When I got hurt, my insurance plan took over, and it allowed me to sit back and heal.” Still, Nadeau isn’t quite sure what he’ll do if racing doesn’t work out. “It’s not like I have a business or could start a job and know what the hell I was doing,” he says. “It’s frustrating not to have a (college) degree in something ÃÂÃÂ I’ve been doing this since age 4, and the only thing I have a degree in is racing.”(USA Today), past news on my Jerry Nadeau page.(5-4-2004)
