HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. -- Last year at this time, Cliff Champion sat lounging in the living room of his home. A lighted Christmas tree stood a few feet away from the couch the former NASCAR crew chief rested on, as the gentle waves from a large lake lapped at the doors of his converted 80-foot Somerset houseboat.

Once the man who helped build cars and call the race-day shots for the likes of Cale Yarborough, Dale Jarrett, Ricky Rudd, Benny Parsons, Richard Childress and Alan Kulwicki, Champion had long ago traded in the fast lanes of NASCAR tracks for the tranquil waters of Lake Norman, which boasts 520 miles of shoreline, a surface area of more than 50 miles and is located on the outskirts of Charlotte.

He ran a luxury charter boat business called Championship Yacht Charters, which catered to all kinds of folks looking to have a good time while floating on the water. He hosted wedding receptions, graduation parties -- even the occasional celebratory party of a recent NASCAR winner -- on the top two decks. His modest but more-than-adequate living quarters comprised most of the bottom deck.

He also hosted many charity events, including a series of cruises one day last May when he took 300 members of the U.S. Armed Forces out on the lake to show his appreciation for all that they do. Bobby Allison was among those who showed up to help him out in that endeavor.

Life seemed grand, its possibilities endless. And Champion loved the slow, leisurely pace of it all as he cruised his guests around the expansive lake at a top speed of 6 mph.

That all changed six months later, and life since has not been the same for Champion. On the afternoon of June 10, after dropping off 60 passengers who had been part of a high school graduation party, everything was altered in a grim, ghastly flash. Shortly after worker Nathan Coppick, 19, began refueling the boat, a powerful explosion engulfed it in flames, along with much of the Westport Marina dock where it had parked.

Crew members Katherine Jones and Jessica Young jumped from the boat and swam to safety. Champion and Mike Federal, father of the graduate being celebrated, also were on board along with Coppick. But while Champion and Federal were at the front of the boat, Coppick was near the rear, where the explosion had occurred.

Champion tried to get to Coppick through the flames.

"You couldn't get to there because the whole back of the boat was a fireball," Champion said then. "I couldn't get to Nate."

Eventually, Champion escaped along with Federal before the huge boat slipped underneath the green-gray waters of Lake Norman. Coppick wasn't found until the next day, when a team of investigators and rescue workers pulled the boat up from the bottom of the cove where it had settled -- and Coppick's body was recovered in the rear near the engine room.

The aftermath

Champion's faith -- and bevy of friends -- has helped him cope with the tremendous loss as he continues to try to rebuild his life.

The boat was still on fire when he picked up his cell phone and called pastors at his nearby church, Grace Covenant. Like himself, two of them previously had worked in NASCAR.

"It was good because they were able to comfort the family, and the firemen, the workers, everybody -- because it was a pretty bad scene," Champion said.

When he emerged from the boat shortly before it slipped underwater, all Champion had on him were the bathing suit and tennis shoes he wore, and the cell phone he gripped in his hand. It was only then that he began grasping the seriousness of the situation, even as he and rescue workers continued to feverishly work in vain to find the missing Coppick.

"You don't realize it even when it's happening to you. A lot of people didn't know that I did live on the boat and it was my business -- so it was everything," Champion said. "When it happened, I was busy trying to fight the fire and help the rescue guys, as was everybody, to either find the young man or help put out the fire."

Soon it was on the news about what had happened. More friends from the NASCAR community started calling. Andy Petree and Phil Parsons showed up to help, as did Tom Cotter, a former roommate who had gone on to become a public relations giant in NASCAR and beyond.

"Deb Williams, an old sports writer, she called up and asked if I needed a place to stay. I kind of stood there in a daze for a second and thought, 'Well, yeah, I guess I do.' I wasn't thinking about where I was going to sleep that night," Champion said. "So that's when it kind of starts hitting you at first. But it still takes a little while. Friends came up and gave me a little bit of money to get me through the night -- because when I went off the boat, I had a pair of tennis shoes and a bathing suit. You can't even go out to dinner without a shirt."

When the boat was pulled from the water and placed on land at a storage facility, Champion faced another problem. Investigators still needed to sift through the wreckage, searching for clues as to what caused the blast. But others saw the hulking, charred remains of Champion's former life as something else, and they started conspiring to steal what they could of it.

Still more folks from his NASCAR past stepped forward to help.

"Frank Davis, one of the old racers who originally came up with the concepts of Legend cars out in Phoenix, Ariz., he saw that as soon as we got the boat up on land and got it secured for the night, thieves started coming out and trying to steal what they saw as scrap aluminum. I needed to stay with the boat to guard it, because it was evidence that we needed to remain untouched until the investigators were done with it," Champion said. "The very next day, Frank brought over a brand-new motorhome and parked it in the lot. And I stayed in his motorhome for two months. He'd come and get it and pump it out and fill it full of fuel and say, 'Here you go.' He wouldn't let me give him a dime."

When Davis finally came to retrieve the motorhome, other Good Samaritans emerged from the shores of Lake Norman.

"Some people I didn't even know from one of the local churches called up. This woman and her husband were moving into a new house, and they offered me their old house to live in rent-free for two months. It was a house right on the water. I lived there for another two months," Champion said.

NASCAR Angels

The latest to help Champion get on his feet again were NASCAR Angels -- or more specifically the reality television program by the same name. Hosted by former champion Rusty Wallace and Shannon Wiseman, they were in Huntersville last week to oversee restoration of a special Ford Bronco owned by Champion.

It was a Bronco awarded to Champion as crew chief for Benny Parsons, when Parsons won the pole for the October 1984 fall race at what was then known as Charlotte Motor Speedway.

"It was late in the season, so it was actually one of the first '85 model Broncos that came off the assembly line," Champion said. "I didn't drive it much. To me, it was a trophy. So I put it in the garage, and I just used it if we wanted to go put the boat in the water. I'd use it to back the boat down to the water, or if we wanted to go snow skiing, it had 4-wheel-drive, so I'd take it to the mountains when we went snow skiing. Other than that, I never really drove it."

His wife -- later to be his ex-wife -- eventually started driving it.

"She was a little speed demon. I would hear stories from people. They'd be like, 'Yeah, she passed me on the Interstate the other day and I saw her go around the corner on two wheels.' So it ended up getting kind of ragged out," Champion said.

Eventually the motor got burned out in it. Champion let it sit for a while but then rebuilt the engine, added a new transmission, a nifty four-inch lift kit for that "monster truck" feel, and four custom-made wheels. But on the way home late at night after doing some contract work for Petree at Bristol Motor Speedway roughly three years ago, the motor went again.

This time, Champion thought, it was parked for good.

Enter the NASCAR Angels, who rebuilt it for him. Phil Parsons, Benny's brother, surprised him by driving it to him last Friday in a ceremony that was captured on an episode of the television series. Now Champion at least has some wheels he can call his own, even if he still lacks a home where he can park it.

"The NASCAR community has been great. Plus a lot of it has just been my local friends, everybody," Champion said recently while sporting a Chip Ganassi Racing sweatshirt -- one of many clothing items given to him by friends in racing over the last six months. "A lot of people heard there had been an accident, but they didn't realize the magnitude of it. They didn't realize I had lost my home and my business at the same time.

"I kind of liken it to being at a regular job where you go to business and the business burns down. Then you turn around to go home and find out your home has burned down, too. So you have no place to work; you have no place to go to sleep. So it's kind of total. I don't want to liken it to [Hurricane] Katrina or something like that. But you've lost your home and you don't have anyplace to go to work, so you don't really have anything left other than what friends can get you. The difference between them and me was that there was no one else down there to help them and everything else around them was lost. It was just me involved in this, and I still had friends around who have helped me out with places to stay and helped me out financially. That helped me weather the storm to get through all this."

“

I have turned it over to God. We think we control our lives, and we really don't. We get to say yes and no to what comes our way, but a lot of what comes our way, He controls.

”

Some day Champion hopes to be able to get back into the charter boat business.

Investigators still have not determined the exact cause of the explosion that rocked his world and others, including the grieving family of Nathan Coppick. Scott Loflin of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission said that it appeared Champion followed proper refueling procedures and the cause of the accident may never be completely known.

"We know we had some vapors and some kind of ignition," Loflin told reporters shortly after the accident. "We might not ever be able to determine exactly what happened."

Six months later, the investigation has lagged and Loflin's words seem prophetic.

Champion attended Coppick's funeral and spoke briefly with his family, but since then lawyers from both sides have suggested they don't talk. Champion and Westport Marina were named as parties in a civil lawsuit filed by the Coppick family Nov. 18 in Lincoln Superior Court.

At the direction of his lawyer, Charlotte attorney John Grupp, Champion said he cannot talk about the lawsuit and what he believes may have caused the accident.

Westport Marina has agreed to pay $1,750 in fines for three serious and three non-serious violations handed down by a North Carolina state agency in charge of overseeing worker safety in relation to the incident. Grupp, however, said Champion plans to appeal $2,800 in fines from the North Carolina Department of Labor's Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

Championship Yacht Charters was fined for two "serious" violations of the state's OSHA regulations -- not having removed all passengers and crew from the boat before refueling began, and not shutting off on-board equipment during refueling.

In response to the lawsuit filed by the Coppick family, Grupp earlier issued the following statement to the media:

"First and foremost, our thoughts and condolences remain with Nathan Coppick's family. Although the investigation into this tragic accident has not yet concluded, we remain diligent in our efforts to learn the facts and cause[s] of this accident to help ensure that future tragedies like this do not occur. We do not believe that Championship Yacht Charters and Mr. Champion were negligent or otherwise responsible for the explosion that occurred on June 10, 2008, as alleged in the lawsuit.

"We do not believe it is appropriate to comment further on the details of this lawsuit while it is pending in our state court system."

Champion, meanwhile, said he is convinced that his deep faith in God will pull him through. He also said he prays daily for Coppick's family.

"He was a great guy," Champion said of Nathan Coppick. "We'd hang around, and you would see him at the marina all the time. I had known him for three years, and he had worked for me several times. He was such a great guy. He always had a smile on his face. When he showed up that day, we were standing upstairs at the bat, putting the sodas in the coolers and things. The two girls working with us on the boat saw him come up the stairs and they turned around and were like, 'Oh, man, great! We're glad to see you.' He was just a pleasure to work with and be around.

"I still feel really, really saddened for the family. The thing is, and I've said it over and over again, if the economy gets settled and everything goes right, I can buy another boat. The marina can repair their facilities, and they can go back and do business. They already are. But no matter what, I can't replace him. So that's the only really bad part out of it. His parents have to live with that. I don't feel sorry for him -- because he was a Christian, and I know he's OK. But I feel sorry for his parents, because they have to live without him. The happiness and the joy that he brought to them, they won't get that. So I hate that for them, and the anguish that it's brought. It's affected a lot of people."

So has the example of generosity displayed by those who have rallied around Champion.

"I have turned it over to God. We think we control our lives, and we really don't," Champion said. "We get to say yes and no to what comes our way, but a lot of what comes our way, He controls. I've prayed about it a lot. I've gotten so many e-mails from people who were on the boat. I've gotten e-mails from people who did weddings on the boat in 2001 and 2003 and they send pictures and tell me how much their friends loved it. And their last line is always, 'Please don't let this stop you from getting back on the water.'

"If I ever think like, 'Maybe I shouldn't do this,' I happen to go through those e-mails. It's funny how God works. When you're down, he kind of sends someone along who helps lift you up."