Where is ... Jeff Purvis? (cont'd)

"It was none of that ... none of the above," Purvis said. "The only reason I did it is because James called me and asked, 'You wanna run this race for me?' There was never a thought that it owed me one, or I owed it one. It was a race, and I wanted to go race. It just happened to be at the same place."

Purvis turned thereafter to dirt Late Models, a division that had seen him accomplish a great many wondrous things. He is, after all, a member of the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame.

It was on his way to a dirt race at the famed Talladega Short Track that Purvis was again nearly brushed with tragedy. At about 3:15 p.m. on Aug. 5, 2006, a left-front tire blew on his team's transporter as it traveled southbound on Interstate 65 near Cullman, Ala. The vehicle struck a culvert in the median and crossed into oncoming traffic before hurtling into a wooded area on the side of the highway.

The accident threw the vehicle's six passengers -- including Purvis, his wife Margo and son Clay -- into complete and utter chaos.

Incredibly, Purvis' first instinct in the accident was to get to his son, who was sleeping in an overhead berth. Another occupant, Ben Britt, was thrown into Purvis, whose back was broken by the impact. Yet another violent hit -- one of countless in the mishap -- broke his neck.

The whole thing lasted maybe 8-10 seconds, but they were the longest 8-10 seconds of Jeff Purvis' life.

"Of all the NASCAR racing I ever did ... dirt racing, any kind of racing ... that was by far the scariest wreck I've ever been involved in," Purvis admitted.

Purvis was the most seriously injured, but even as the vehicle was coming to a rest, he knew he had to move. And fast.

"When it stopped, I was buried down by where the motor was, and I heard it basically sparking," Purvis said. "You could hear the flame. Everybody just started saying, 'Get out!' We knew that thing was fixing to catch on fire. We finally got out. ... It burnt up everything -- race cars, a four-wheeler -- everything. Everything we had, it burnt it all.

"Everything we had was just totally engulfed in flames. [A fireman] said, 'Mr. Purvis, we're doing everything we can.' He just kept trying to apologize that they couldn't get it put out, and when I saved up enough breath, I finally told him, 'Listen ... I'm happy. Just let it burn.'"

A couple of months after the accident, Purvis was able to return to work at Queen City Metals in his hometown Clarksville, Tenn. For quite a while, and sometimes even now, he blamed himself for putting his family through such an ordeal.

They wouldn't have been going to a race if it hadn't been for him, he told himself. And if they hadn't been going to a race because of him, they wouldn't have been in the accident.

"I still somewhat do [blame myself]," Purvis said. "[Returning to racing after the Nazareth accident] is something that I chose to do. I know accidents are gonna happen. I don't wake up guilty every morning that I've done this, because everybody does have a choice. It's kind of a double-edged sword, but I do. It was something I was choosing to do because I loved doing it. I don't know if it was such a good decision."

Even while considering both of the terrible accidents in which he's been involved, Purvis says that an even bigger life-changing event was the death earlier this year of his first wife, Susan Turner, due to cancer. (Continued)