Wind in his sails

Mast looks to educate about carbon monoxide hazards

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Former Winston Cup driver Rick Mast doesn't look like a guinea pig.

A trim Virginian in jeans and black cowboy boots, he's got two homegrown businesses to run and twin 6-year-old daughters to raise.

He's also a living example of one of racing's most concealed risks -- carbon monoxide poisoning.

The malady is the reason for his just-announced retirement and the study begun late last season by NASCAR's research and development center. Tuesday's public acknowledgment of both issues -- oft-rumored in the final months of 2002 -- is part of what Mast hopes will be a life-saving legacy.

"That was my game plan from way back, last summer sometime," he said, surrounded by a throng attending this week's annual media tour sponsored by UAW-GM Motorsports and presented by Lowe's Motor Speedway. "If it was carbon monoxide poisoning, that's what I wanted to happen. I wanted to be able sit down with you guys and explain what it was, and have NASCAR explain what they're trying to do about it."

Across the room, Gary Nelson, the managing director of NASCAR's R&D center, explained that research is in its formative stages; he's overseeing a handful of physicians and R&D engineers testing filters, possible parts solutions, and ways of monitoring carbon monoxide levels in race cars.

It was a prime topic during safety update meetings for all teams who attended the past two weeks' Daytona International Speedway test sessions. And Nelson says he knows this much: That no filter can block carbon monoxide, a gas.

"But there is a way to use it as a catalyst to convert it to carbon dioxide, which is a very safe gas," said Nelson.

A few teams already employ a catalytic system to help cleanse the air drivers breathe behind the wheel -- specially Jeff Gordon's and Jimmy Johnson's teams. NASCAR wants to test that system and others to determine a solution. Nelson said several drivers volunteered to help establish a baseline late last season, to have their carboxi-hemogloblin levels tested pre- and postrace, and that the efforts perhaps will intensify.

"We'll learn, and then we'll pass that knowledge to the drivers," said Nelson of the study's 2003 initiatives. "And the first thing is, know what you're talking about, and that's what our goal is."

Meanwhile, Mast perseveres. His retirement, and the reason behind it, are now something he must endure. "If it was something that I'd knowingly done, or could have prevented, then that's when it would be hard for me to live with myself," Mast said.

A Cup regular since 1989, he earned four poles, seven top-five finishes, 36 top-10 finishes, and just over $9 million dollars in 364 Cup starts. But Tuesday's retirement announcement was a formality. His career actually ended last May, during preparation for the Coca-Cola Racing Family 600. Nauseous and ill since the March race at Bristol, Mast took himself out of owner Junie Donlavey's car and on to a seemingly never-ending gauntlet of medical experts.

"Name a test and let me tell you if I've had it," he said. "That's the easier way to do it."

An initial visit with NASCAR doctors at Bristol, and later consultation with his own family physician yielded no answers. A summer visit to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., yielded the first suspicion of toxic exposure.

"There's 10 zillion things that could cause that, and they basically started trying to eliminate those things," said Mast.

Later last summer, the Colorado Neurological Clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., confirmed carbon monoxide poisoning, a diagnosis made more difficult because symptoms resemble, "the worst hangover you've ever had," according to Mast. They also mimic flu, cold and food poisoning symptoms, and ultimately, the diagnosis wasn't a surprise.

Mast remembers having a bout of carbon monoxide poisoning following a 1997 Sears Point race (he spent that night in the hospital after the illness forced his plane to land). He also said doctors have told them that the poison has different effects on different people. "It can kill you," said Kyle Petty, who suffered a bout of carbon monoxide poisoning while driving for Felix Sabates in the early 1990s. Sabates remembers it well.

"In 1990 we were in Sonoma, and we had to fly Kyle home in a private plane straight to Duke University because his carbon monoxide levels were like 30 percent higher than [normal]," Sabates said. "He should've been dead. And they had to decompress him and all that stuff. We had a problem with our car. We fixed it."

Petty's crew chief at the time was Nelson.

"Gary went through all of that with me back then, with Kyle," said Sabates. "So we knew that carbon monoxide was a problem."

"It was conversation over the years, but it's very elusive," said Nelson of carbon monoxide's appearances. "It's there for a second and gone. You see a car blow an engine and a big plume of smoke come up. You turn and look back and that smoke's gone. Where did it go? It dissipated."

Petty said he thinks most of today's carbon monoxide problems come from equipment failures or wrecks; that it's not a constant evil.

"I think it went through a stage where you didn't pay any attention to it, then all of a sudden it got real bad, and then everybody started working on different things," said Petty, "whether it was their cars and cleaning their cars up. And there are days when a header'll break or something'll happen, and yeah, it's a problem. But I don't think it's as bad a problem as everybody's talking about right now."

Mast's problem is that he must reconstruct his life. He said he's back to 80 percent of his usual health. Can't cut his grass. Can't ride in a parade. Any type of exhaust fumes from anything are intolerable. An attempt last June to mow three acres at his Rockbridge Baths, Va., home put him in bed for five days. So did serving as grand marshal -- while riding in a convertible -- during his hometown's Labor Day parade.

"If I'm sitting in traffic, I push that re-circulation button," Mast said. "It makes you more aware of those things."

He's more than aware he'll never climb inside another stock car. But he's learning to wean himself -- by not watching the start of televised races. "They got that camera shot of the guys flipping the switch on, now that's a tough time," said Mast. "I've had problems with that. My party's going on and I'm not there."

Denise N. Maloof covers NASCAR for CNNSI.com.