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Making me sick I quickly learned how bad carbon monoxide is
You might think the worst thing that can happen to you in a race car is wrecking. A lot of times that’s the case but, by and large, the worst thing that can happen is carbon monoxide poisoning. I got a little bit of that at Martinsville this past week and, believe me, a little bit of that can go a long way. It burns your eyes and you can feel it on your skin. The more you breathe of it, the more light-headed you feel. And if it goes on long enough, you start getting sick and, sooner or later, start seeing things. Fortunately, when it happened with our car at Martinsville, I didn’t stay in the car long enough to start envisioning Victory Lane or anything like that. I radioed Peter Sospenzo, my crew chief, and told him what the problem was. I told him I wanted to stay in the car too. Peter was smart enough to tell me to bring the thing in. You can’t survive those fumes. Interesting sidenote - a reporter asked Peter what happened and he said, "He got fumes." What was reported was that I had the flu. My mom got on me later - "Why were you driving if you were so sick with the flu? Why didn’t you tell me?" I had to tell her what really happened, and I hope she believes me now. Anyway, if you get carbon monoxide bad enough, you will feel it for days. It takes a long time to get out of your system. It might be two or three days before you start feeling right again. That stuff gets in your bloodstream and just about refuses to ever leave. I got out quick enough at Martinsville that it didn’t last as long as it might have. Plus, the doctors there gave me oxygen and a fluid IV, so that got me back on my feet a lot quicker than maybe normally I would have. What causes it? In this case, the crush panels on my car got torn a little bit. You do a whole lot of slamming and banging at Martinsville. At little over half a mile, it’s just the nature of the place. All you need is one small hole somewhere in those crush panels, and the fumes are going to start getting in. Most of the time, even then you don’t have to worry about it as long as you have a full-face helmet. But the stuff was so thick you could just about cut it. I always hate to get out of the car but, Sunday at Martinsville, I was glad to get out. Anyway, it’s off to Charlotte this week, and I feel a whole lot better. We’re excited about this race coming up. We’ve had six straight DNF’s but I don’t think that was indicative of what the Mobil 1 team has had at the race track. We weren’t the best in the world at Martinsville, even though we were one of the fastest cars in Happy Hour the day before. And we weren’t a factor at New Hampshire. But of those other four races, we were about the best thing out there. At Darlington and Dover, no doubt we had the field covered. A wreck got us at Darlington and the engine let go at Dover. That’s kind of how our season has been all year. When we get on a roll, the bottom drops out. When it looks like we can’t fall any lower, something great happens. We’ve had our share of bad luck this year, sure. But how many teams would trade three poles and two race wins with us? We go to a 500-mile race at Charlotte now as the only team that has won more than one 500-mile race all season. That’s got to make you feel good. We think we’re headed back up again and, if our rate of luck holds, this Mobil 1 team ought to be sitting right on top when the checkered flag falls at Charlotte Sunday night. Jeremy Mayfield is on his third season driving the Mobil 1 Taurus for Penske-Kranekuss. His dairy appears weekly on CNNSI.com.
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