Competitive fire still burns for Purvis

CONCORD, N.C. -- The answer to the obvious question is an easy one.

Then again, it really isn't.

Does Jeff Purvis, a year after a horrific crash at Nazareth Speedway nearly took his life, want to race again?

Well, of course he does.

	Jeff Purvis

"Let's see: I've been at it for 25 years, don't know anything else, didn't know anything else," Purvis said last week.

Purvis would love nothing more than to get back in a race car and compete. The fire still burns.

But it's not so simple any more. The year of recovery hasn't gotten Purvis back to 100 percent, and still no one can tell him when he'll be back to the Jeff Purvis he was before the wreck.

Besides, even if Purvis was ready to get behind the wheel -- and he admits he's not even ready to talk to NASCAR about coming back yet -- he's not convinced that's the smart thing to do.

Purvis has a new wife, Margo, to think about. And two kids. They're not sure he should try to drive a race car again.

And then there are the doctors, who probably want to give Purvis some dirty looks when he mentions driving.

"There's a lot more involved that what Jeff wants," Purvis said. "I've got Margo. She's the one that basically healed me, so I've got to please her. I've got my kids. There's a lot more people involved that just me: the doctors, NASCAR.

"The best I can tell is it really doesn't matter what Jeff wants."

But if never driving a race car again is the worst thing that happens to Purvis, he can live with that. After all, living is a gift, and Purvis' life nearly ended May 19, 2002.

The engine in Purvis' No. 37 car blew, coating the track with oil. Greg Biffle spun in the fluid and slammed into Purvis' car.

The injuries were substantial. A broken leg, fractured vertebra in his neck. Worst of all was the severe head injury.

He stayed in the hospital in Pennsylvania for nearly a week until transferring to a rehab center in Tennessee. Even when he got home, Purvis had to wear a halo to stabilize his neck.

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Slowly, Purvis got better. Now, a year later, Purvis can even joke about his devastating injuries.

"It kind of works its way up," Purvis said. "The leg has never been an issue. The back has been a little bit of an issue, and the neck has been more of an issue. It seems like the higher you got, the worse it got."

He said he wasn't trying to be Hercules, but there was "nothing to" healing from the broken bones. The nerve and tendon damage, though, is another matter, still causing Purvis a lot of pain.

The broken vertebrae have healed, but he still can't turn his head left and right as far as he could before.

"It's an ongoing process of healing," Purvis said. "Everybody gives you a different number as to when they think you'll be close as you're going to be. Some people say it's going to say two years, three years. Everybody has a different number, but I don't know how anybody knows."

Purvis keeps going to check-ups, but no one ever tells him he's 80 percent, 90 percent. Heaven forbid they tell him he's 100 percent.

"If they tell me I'm 100 percent, I couldn't keep coming back to them," Purvis said. "They just basically tell me, 'You're going to continue to get better.' That's pretty much all they ever say. They do a check-up and pat me on my back and send me on."

But then there's his head injury. Purvis said that's a "horse of a different color." Brain injuries don't heal quite like broken bones, and that process has been slow.

Purvis' memory loss was substantial, but that is improving daily.

	Credit: ASP

"I remember something every day that I had forgotten," Purvis said. "I had a lot of memory loss. We were talking (last Thursday), and I remembered something that actually happened the weekend leading up to the race."

Purvis was walking to a barn on his property and remembered where Nazareth was. Until then, he only knew he wrecked at Nazareth Speedway because someone told him.

"I can honestly tell you I will never remember the wreck," Purvis said. "There's nothing about that wreck, anything about the race -- I just know I will never remember that."

Instead, Purvis focuses on getting better. He found a physical therapist to come to his home, and he works out three to five days a week.

"I feel so much better than I did," Purvis said. "If I don't get any better from here, I can live with it."

"I'm just basically trying to get physically stronger. Whether they let me race or not, I'm going to be as fit as I know how to be."

Throughout his long recovery, Purvis has had numerous people come to his aid, from his wife to his mother to his sister to long-time friends and business partners.

His former crew chief, Terry Shirley, took Purvis' accident to heart.

"I think Terry Shirley was almost as upset as Margo was," Purvis said. "He was so upset about the whole thing."

Drivers stepped in, too, to lend support. Purvis mentioned Jason Keller, Michael Waltrip, Jimmy Spencer and Dave Blaney.

Purvis said Kenny Crosswhite, the MRO chaplain, was "most definitely was someone we could not have done without." NASCAR chipped in, too, as did the Busch Series Ladies Association.

And Purvis made sure he mentioned Barbara Stoner, his personal assistant at his scrapyard company.

"There were so many people that came to my aid, I'll never be able to thank them enough," Purvis said.

Recently, Purvis took another important step. He went back to work at his scrapyard, Queen City Metals, which is based in Clarksville, Tenn. and has another location in Atlanta.

"They finally came got me the other day and said, 'It's pretty much time for you to come back to work. You might not can race right now, but you can work,'" Purvis said. "They've put me back to work. I've got plenty of things to do. I was getting to where I was enjoying what I was doing."

"My mind has always been, the best I can remember, working on something, trying to do something," Purvis said. "To just stop and sit back, and for your mind to quit working is not a good thing. Everybody needs some kind of goal or motivation.

"For the longest time, it was really hard on me to go to sales meetings. I counted on my partner to do all the talking. He was very good at it, but it was very hard on it. I'm getting back to the point where I'm OK. It's very fulfilling to have something that you're needed at."

Does the race car still need him? Does the wishes of his wife and kids get overruled by the desire to get back behind the wheel?

Probably not. Sure, he wants to drive again. That's a dumb question.

It's painful for Purvis to watch races on television these days. The itch to drive remains.

"There for a while, when I saw they weren't going to quit racing just because I couldn't race, we started watching again," Purvis said. "It's hard for me to watch it because that's something I still want to do."