Wheel of Good Fortune : Race Driver Irvan Plans a Return After Surviving Near-Fatal Crash

DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. —  Whenever Ernie Irvan looks in the mirror and sees the black patch over his left eye, conflicting thoughts race through his mind.

Irvan the race driver is dejected.

“It’s awful tough for me to sit around, especially at Daytona, knowing the other guys are out there running around, getting ready for the 500. I know I’ve got to be patient, but that’s not like me. I want out there. I’m missing the start of a new year.”

On the other hand, Irvan the survivor is happy to be anywhere.

“When I think back to less than six months ago and know that doctors told my wife I had only about a 5% chance to make it through the night, then how can I complain about anything?” That night was last Aug. 20. Irvan had been practicing in his Ford Thunderbird earlier in the day on the high banks at Michigan International Speedway when a tire blew, sending the car straight into the wall at about 170 m.p.h.

“I don’t remember anything about that day, the day before, or the 20 days following the accident,” he said Monday as he stood beside the No. 28 car--his car--that Dale Jarrett qualified on the pole for Sunday’s Daytona 500.

When it became apparent that Irvan, 36, would not be ready for this year’s Winston Cup season, team owner Robert Yates signed Jarrett, the 1993 500 winner, to drive the team’s Ford until Irvan returns.

“I don’t remember anything at all, but they tell me the impact of the right front wheel knocked it back almost to the driver’s seat. I had just finished a 12-lap run and was getting ready to come in.

“What happened was, (my) body was going 170 m.p.h. with the car and when the car hit, the body stopped too. But the brain didn’t.”

Irvan suffered severe head and lung injuries and was unconscious for seven days.

“Look at me today,” he said, looking more like a pirate than a race driver. “If it weren’t for this patch and my double vision, I’d be as good, maybe better than, I was before the accident.

“Basically, I could race tomorrow, if I wanted to, but I want my eye to heal up properly. The doctors tell me the double vision should be about gone by June or July. By August, I can probably go racing again.

“It’s been amazing how many letters I received where people told me I was in their prayers. I know it helped me. Jesus was the one who saved me. The big thing is that the Lord wanted me here to do something. I gave myself to God about two years ago when the MRO (Motor Racing Outreach) people gave me the chance to find the church at the race track.

“I had a pretty religious upbringing back home in Salinas (Calif.), but for years I found it too easy to make excuses not to go to church. When I was a kid, I’d be karting, or riding my motorcycle and pretty soon I never went at all.

“One Sunday, I dropped in on the track service and before long I felt I should commit myself. The MRO minister (Max Helton) helped me do it. I’ve felt better about myself ever since, although I didn’t say much about it until after the accident.”

Irvan has not lost his sense of humor. From time to time, he switches the patch from the injured left eye to the right eye.

“I get a kick out of people giving me a double take, but I do it for healing reasons too,” he said. “I’ve been wearing the patch for 5 1/2 months and sometimes the left eye needs exercise. I can see out of it fine. It’s not as good as the right eye, but it’s 100% better than it was a month and a half ago.”

Curiously, Irvan can see well with each eye by itself, but when he tries to focus with both, he sees two images.

“If I thought it wasn’t going to heal, I’d drive with one eye,” he said. “I had a little trouble with depth perception when I started driving my personal car, but some guys say that’s nothing new. They claimed I had that problem on the racetrack when I kept ramming them in the rear.”

Irvan will probably make his first start in a NASCAR SuperTruck race. He owns a truck team with Joe Ruttman as the driver, but hopes to take the seat for a trial run before tackling the Winston Cup.

“It would be a great place for me to fine-tune my skills,” he said.

Although doctors haven’t given him the green light to race, Irvan went to the Ford test track near Naples, Fla., last month and drove a production Thunderbird on the road course. He was timed at close to 100 m.p.h.--nothing like the 190s he would be running at Daytona, but fast enough.

“It wasn’t like I was up to racing speeds, but the engineers were getting their data on a computer and it showed that it was a smooth drive,” he said. “That’s more important than going fast.”

Such assurances are important to Irvan, who admits that he is nagged daily by thoughts that he might not be the same driver he was.

Irvan won three races last year and despite sitting out the last 11 of the season, wound up 22nd in the Winston Cup points, earning $1.3 million. He had 14 top-five finishes in his 20 starts.

“I was on top of my sport,” he said. “I know what it’s like to be at the bottom. I remember when I walked through the garage area and everyone was against me, back when I was Swervin’ Irvan and everybody said I crashed more than I finished. It was a long road from the bottom to the top rung.”

That road started at Stockton, Calif., when Irvan was 18. He and his father built a car and Ernie won the track championship. The success inspired them to move to Concord, N.C., and try their luck at getting a Winston Cup ride.

For several years, the best job Irvan got was welding seats on the Charlotte Motor Speedway grandstands. He drove for six years at short tracks around Concord before he ever sat in a Winston Cup car. D.K. Ulrich gave him his first chance in 1987, but he didn’t win a race until 1990.

“There were times I don’t think anyone thought I’d make it but me and (wife) Kit,” he said.

Some friends believe Irvan might be better off not hanging around Daytona, where every day he sees his car and his fellow drivers.

“Sure, it’s eating my heart out not to be in the car,” he said. “But I still feel like a team player and if I wasn’t here, I’d probably be even worse off, worrying about what was going on. (The crew) will do whatever they can to help me come back, so I feel like I should do anything I can to help them.

“When Dale and Robert and (crew chief) Larry (McReynolds) get together to work out things, I feel I have some input. I’ve been there before so I can furnish another set of eyes--one eye at least.”

Jarrett, the highly talented interim driver, credited Irvan with helping solve a problem the day before qualifying.

“The car was loose in the corners in practice on Friday and Ernie suggested a remedy,” Jarrett said. “The crew made some changes, like he said, and it definitely helped.”

It definitely helped Irvan too. It made him feel a part of the team. His team.