Where is ... Jerry Nadeau?

There is no preamble for Jerry Nadeau.

Most would tend to ease into the subject of a career-ending injury. Not Nadeau. The accident at Richmond on May 2, 2003, nearly ended his life, and he would never again drive another Cup race. Ask him what he's up to these days, and there is no pretension.

The things he went through were tough to handle, so why beat around the bush?

"It's been a life-changing situation with everything that's gone on the last four and a half years," Nadeau said. "Obviously, my life was racing. It took a U-turn. It doesn't really look good for me coming back to racing. It's been tough. I've raced since I was 4 years old. Then, all of a sudden, it just stopped. It just gave me a whole new perspective on life."

Jerry Nadeau

Cup Series Stats

Starts	177
Wins	1
Top-5	9
Top-10	19
Poles	0
Laps Led	655
Avg. Start	20.9
Avg. Finish	26.3

• Driver Page

Life has not been perfect for Nadeau since his accident. He is now divorced. A comeback that he was planning -- nothing huge, just a couple of ARCA starts here and there, at least to begin with -- was derailed earlier this year by the sudden passing of his father, Gerard.

Nadeau was in Florida for a test in a road-racing entry when he got the kind of call that changes lives. A biopsy had revealed that Gerard had anaplastic thyroid cancer, a particularly aggressive and rare form of cancer of the thyroid gland. According to the Thyroid Cancer Survivor's Association, few other cancers spread as quickly.

That, and only about 300 new cases are diagnosed in the United States. Gerard Nadeau was one of those few. Two months after the diagnosis, on March 19, he died.

"That's been the hardest thing that's hit me," Nadeau said. "Racing, I'm not worried about. Everything is about life. Dad has done so much for me. He put me in a go-kart when I was 4 years old. He took me every weekend to a race. That's been the toughest part."

There have been times when Nadeau dwelled on his accident. More than four years later, he can't quite put the whole day together. The memories come in bits and pieces, but the whole day? No. Not yet, at least. He remembers having his bowl of oatmeal and toast. He remembers the first practice, qualifying and maybe a lap or two of Happy Hour.

He does not remember the spin, in which he struck the wall between Turns 1 and 2 on the driver's side. It was a hard lick, but nothing those that saw it would ever have thought would lead to the consequences that it did for Nadeau. For an agonizing 20 minutes, safety workers cut Nadeau out of his Pontiac.

Flown by helicopter to Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, the driver was placed on a ventilator and listed in critical condition with a severe head injury. He had other injuries, such as a collapsed lung, fractured left shoulder blade and rib injuries, but those can be fixed with relative ease. Not the head injury. To this day, the blow has left Nadeau with a lingering numbness throughout his entire left side.

"I spun and hit the wall perfect ... it was like the perfect storm," Nadeau said. "It just hit so perfect. It was a lot of Gs. It's like when you see the Dale Earnhardt wreck. It doesn't look that bad. Mine didn't look that bad, either. But sometimes the worst accidents are the accidents that don't look bad. Mine was one of those." (Continued)