Where is ... Rick Mast? (cont'd)

That's not to say that racing isn't still close to Mast's heart. It is.

"I will say this ... when I go to the racetracks now ... it's like walking into your momma's womb, it really is," Mast said. "It's like, man, I'm home. I'm real, real sad when I leave. This is actually home. This is where I belong. But as soon as I get one day away from the track, after I get back home, then I'm perfectly fine."

Things happen for a reason. Just before his health started to deteriorate in earnest, Mast had a deal in place that would've given him solid footing in the sport for another two-and-a-half years. After that, he planned to retire on his own terms.

Your own terms. It's the way anybody in racing -- or any other profession for that matter -- wants to go out. Mast didn't have that chance. Looking back, however, what might life have been like had he been able to fulfill those obligations? Mast likes the way things are, thank you very much.

"If I'd got of the thing naturally, just retired and got out of the car, I'd still be right in the middle of it, man, because I would've never had the opportunity to ... learn a different lifestyle," Mast continued. "I'm not saying down the road that I might not entertain doing something again. Doing some of that [television] stuff, I really enjoyed it. I was pretty darn good at it.

"I have people still today all the time giggin' at me ... 'Rick, why don't you do some TV, do some radio?' If they could move everything right here to Lexington, Va., I'd be there every day with a big smile on my face. It's just the travel and being away from home so much. I just got acclimated to what I'm doing right now."

Driving for veteran independent car owner Junie Donlavey early in 2002, Mast began to feel progressively worse. He limped through what was then known as The Winston Open at Charlotte, and that was it.

He knew he couldn't do anymore. He had to find out what was hurting him so very badly. He called everybody he needed to call -- Donlavey, his sponsors, everybody -- and let them know he had to step out of the car.

"I think it was 50 laps, and when that race was over, I'm telling ya, it was all I could do to get out of the car and make myself get back over to the motorhome," Mast said. "When I got to the motorhome, I just basically collapsed. I said, 'I don't know what's going on. There's no way I can run 600 miles next week.'"

In the following months, seven different clinics put Mast through the wringer. He would mow his lawn and be down for a week afterward. He was grand marshal for a parade near home, and even that put him back on his back. It wasn't until late October-early November before doctors at long last concluded that he'd been hit, and hit hard, with carbon monoxide poisoning.

Finally, Mast announced his retirement on Jan. 22, 2003. Before he did so, he got NASCAR involved. He was getting better, and Mast being Mast, he wanted to do everything he could to help prevent others from going through what he'd been through.

Mast was 45 when he quit driving. Already, he says now, there were drivers 15 years his junior who were experiencing some of the same symptoms he'd exhibited while battling carbon monoxide poisoning in a racecar. He won't say who they were, except that they were "winning races, championships, the whole deal."

"I called [NASCAR president] Mike Helton ... and told him what was going on," Mast said. "I said, 'Here's what's going on. We've got a problem with these cars we need to address. I want to have a little media circus and announce what's wrong with me and what happened to me, and I want to be able to turn to you and say, here's what NASCAR's doing about it.'"

As a direct result of Mast's problems, systems have been developed to get fresher air into driver cockpits to the point now where carbon monoxide poisoning is a "non-issue." Mast himself is better now, his bouts lessening greatly over the last couple of years.

Mast had already made his mark in racing. He won the pole for Richard Petty's last race and Jeff Gordon's first, back in 1992 at Atlanta. He won the pole for the first Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He finished second to Dale Earnhardt at Rockingham, sliding almost sideways coming off Turn 4 on the last lap trying to catch the legend.

Those are numbers that fade with time. You'd have to look them up somewhere. For all that, drivers can now breathe, and breathe easy. It's all because of Mast.

"I get so many calls from people I've never talked to in my life, drivers' names that I grew up hearing," Mast said. "A lot of people call me up and they all say the same thing ... 'I want to thank you.' Why are you thanking me? 'You've answered all my questions. All my career, I couldn't figure it out. I'd get out of the car and I'd feel like [expletive] and I'd feel like [expletive] for a week. I couldn't figure out what was going on. I thought it was just being out of shape.'"