They doubted Ernie Irvan would live, much less race again. But he didn't know thatby Hank Hersch
He was told he would never hear with his left ear, the one with the ruptured eardrum. The one that on Aug. 20, 1994, poured a lake of blood onto the Michigan International Speedway after his Thunderbird slammed head-on into the wall at Turn 3. But then after a short time he could hear again. With surgery, his left ear would become almost as sound as his right.
He was told that his right side had been partially paralyzed because of the skull fracture he suffered. But a few days after the crash, his wife placed one of their baby daughter's booties in his right hand; after clenching it for five days, he regained the use of that arm. Following two months of physical therapy, he would walk again without a trace of a limp.
He was told that the crash—200 mph, straight into the wall—had impaired his memory. He knew, for instance, that the animal he saw in a picture had a hump, lived in the desert and habitually spit, but he could not remember that it was called a camel. He would begin to dial the numbers 4-5-6 on a telephone, only to stare blankly at the buttons, unable to recall what a 4 was or even what he had set out to do. Then, six weeks following the crash, he left the hospital and resumed overseeing the fleet of racing cars and trucks he owns in Mooresville, N.C. After he had worked in the office for a few months, the fog lifted from his short-term memory.
He was told, much later, that his chances for survival had been one in 10, that within days of his crash 60,000 racing fans had inscribed prayers for his life in letters to him, that he needed to undergo two more procedures in which surgeons would fill the aneurysm in his brain with titanium coils after running them through his veins "like they were brake lines." He was told some of the most dire news a man can hear, but nobody ever told him the one grim fact that seemed obvious to all the medical personnel who treated him and to all the friends and relatives who encouraged him through his recovery. Nobody ever told him that he would not race again.
Kim (left) and Jordan still huddle with Irvan next to his T-Bird before races, but an angel sent by fans now joins them.
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"All I know is, God works in mysterious ways," says 37-year-old Ernie Irvan from his perch on a bench set among a small maze of exercise machines in the back of his Mooresville garage. Irvan is pumping out 50-pound triceps extensions while Lynyrd Skynyrd's Sweet Home, Alabama blares from a radio in the corner. It is mid-August, and he wears a black tank top and weightlifting gloves bearing the logo NO FEAR, a line of athletic wear he endorses. Thanks to his daily two-hour workouts, the 5'9" Irvan is a fit 180 pounds, and the only obvious scar from his accident is redness in his left eye, the lid of which still does not fully close. "Used to be I would sit here thinking I got a sore arm," Irvan says. "Now it seems like a miracle that the arm even works."
A few days earlier Irvan had shown just how miraculously well he still works. Returning for the first time to the scene of his crash in Brooklyn, Mich., he started 12th and finished fourth in the GM Goodwrench 400, charging hard and running just as smooth and deep into the corners as he ever had. It was Irvan's eighth top-five finish in his last 10 races, a streak that included his first win in 780 days, at the Jiffy Lube 300 in Loudon, N.H. "Certain parts of the brain act on certain parts of the body," he says. "So while I couldn't remember what a camel was, there were lots of things I never forgot. I never forgot or lost what I needed to drive a race car."
And this, too, must be part of God's mystery: that Irvan's career was saved because he forgot the lesson it had taken him the longest as a driver to learn. Alternately known as Bonehead and Swervin' Irvan for his willful ways behind the wheel, he had long been preached sermons on the occasional need for caution and patience by Richard Petty and Rusty Wallace. Irvan finally listened to their counsel; at the time of his '94 crash he was in second place in the Winston Cup point standings, 79 points behind leader and eventual champion Dale Earnhardt. But as soon as he checked out of the Charlotte Institute for Rehabilitation on Sept. 30, 1994, Irvan repaired to his garage and recklessly began his comeback.
Irvan barely survived his terrifying '94 crash at Michigan.
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He returned to Winston Cup racing at North Wilkesboro on Oct. 1, 1995, and in three starts that season had two top-10 finishes despite being forced to wear a patch on his left eye to alleviate double vision caused by the crash. But things had changed while he was sidelined: Tracks had been paved, weight allowances adjusted, tires modified. Irvan struggled early in the 1996 season, and in May there was speculation among racetrack insiders that owner Robert Yates might drop him from the team. "If you go away for any time and try to come back, it's tough," says Irvan's crew chief, Larry McReynolds. "Things change almost overnight, it seems like, and for a little bit we were hunting and pecking and shooting in the dark. But then Ernie started feeling confident again, and he was like a man on a mission."
Irvan's fellow racers have embraced his return—for the most part. In July's DieHard 500 at Talladega his bumping of Sterling Marlin triggered an 11-car pileup in which Earnhardt suffered a broken sternum and collarbone. A few days later, at the Brickyard 400, a mock eye chart floated around Gasoline Alley with a large E and four lines beneath it reading: "[E]rnie don't hit me you one-eyed [expletive]." (Irvan ditched the patch this season and says that with glasses his vision is a slightly below-average 20/25 in his left eye, a slightly above-average 20/15 in his right.)
Throughout his convalescence, Irvan was determined to race—and win—again
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Irvan's priorities have changed since that dim day in Michigan. He has cut down on sponsor-driven appearances so he can spend more time with Kim and their daughter, Jordan, now three. And his daily training regimen is a bulwark against the hazards of his profession. "The one thing different about Ernie now is that he probably takes better care of himself—even in the race car," McReynolds says. "He knows how these things can hurt you now. We've always been real careful, I think, but he asks more questions and pays more attention to safety now, and as his friend I'm glad he does."
The Irvans have long had a tradition of gathering next to Ernie's
T-Bird before each race, but to Kim these prestart moments are now filled with almost unbearable tension. Their ritual has come to include a good-luck angel sent to Irvan by a couple of fans from Pennsylvania; Kim pins it to his driving suit. "I still enjoy the races," Kim says, "and I get all excited when we do well, but it's not the same for me. The reality of it is always there, where before you just didn't think it could happen to you. But when it does...."
And yet, somehow, the Irvans are living miraculously close to the way they were two years ago, rearing their daughter and showing and breeding Paso Fino horses. It helps that Ernie has no memory of the crash or of the 21 days afterward when his life hung in the balance. It helps that the career he has been drawn to since he started racing go-karts as a nine-year-old in California demands the most unflinching kind of focus.
"You think about how appreciative you are for life," Irvan says. "But it's amazing when you sit in the car, put your helmet on, put your shield down. It's like"—and here Irvan snaps his fingers—"all of a sudden a page turns. You aren't thinking about dying. You're thinking about winning that race."
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