The accident changed Larry Pearson. It shattered his pelvis, leaving him with plates and screws connecting the fragments of bone. It broke his right arm and three of his ribs. It crushed his lower left leg to the point where even five months later he can only place half his body weight on it, and it may take a full year for all the swelling to go down. He required multiple surgeries, was bedridden for weeks, and slowly graduated from a wheelchair to a walker to the crutches he gets around on now.

But the accident changed Pearson in other ways, too. It changed him from within.

“

I was just absolutely tickled to death to even be here, so accepting the fact that it's going to take a while for me to get healed back to 100 percent, no, that's not even on my mind.

”

-- LARRY PEARSON

"I could sit around and I could be depressed. But I refuse to do that," said Pearson, a two-time champion of what's now called the Nationwide Series and the son of NASCAR legend David Pearson. "When I had the crash, and I realized I was going to be OK, it changed me. I try to look at everything on the positive side now. Not that I didn't before, but sometimes you'll get angry and upset in certain situations. I try not to do that too much anymore. I try to have a positive attitude."

Pearson, 56, suffered devastating injuries in a crash March 20 during an exhibition race at Bristol Motor Speedway. It was supposed to be a feel-good event, a race that brought back many former Bristol winners like Cale Yarborough, Harry Gant and Jack Ingram, and put them in stock cars painted to look like those they drove in their prime. That was until Pearson was T-boned by Charlie Glotzbach in Turn 2, a crash that knocked Pearson unconscious and left family friend Russell Branham fearing the worst.

"It was a scary sight," said Branham, who once worked as Larry Pearson's public relations manager and is so fond of the family his 10-year-old son is named Pearson. "I looked in there, and he was unconscious and had blood coming out of his nose. I thought he was either done, or he'd never walk again because of the impact and the way his lower body ended up. I thought the worst."

Pearson survived, but the accident literally left him a broken man. He had his first surgery that night in Bristol, and two days later was airlifted to a hospital in Charlotte, where he stayed for two weeks and had several more operations. For a while after returning to his home outside Spartanburg, S.C., he was confined to the hospital bed added to a downstairs room. He still sleeps there today; he's not yet able to get up and down stairs. Although Pearson said he's no longer in any pain -- well, expect for a nagging rib muscle that keeps giving him trouble -- he still attends weekly physical therapy sessions.

He's not sure when he'll be fully healed. He has another doctor's appointment scheduled for next week, when they'll take more x-rays and see how things are progressing. And yet there's no anger over what he's having to go through, no bitterness toward Bristol, no resentment toward the sport. Despite this severe, debilitating trauma, Pearson seems strangely happy and content. Ask him how he's feeling, and he'll tell you he's doing great.

"It's going to be a long road, and I've accepted that fact. It's something that happened. You have to live with it. Heck, I knew the consequences and the risk when I got in the race car. I'd done it for 22 years. It's just something you live with. It's no big deal, and that's the way that I'm looking at it. It happened. I will heal. I don't know when but I will, but I will heal and I will be 100 percent," said Pearson, who lives with his wife Cathy in Boiling Springs, S.C.

"Shoot, I was lucky to be alive. I was just absolutely tickled to death to even be here, so accepting the fact that it's going to take a while for me to get healed back to 100 percent, no, that's not even on my mind. I've accepted it, and it wasn't a big deal to accept it. I'm glad to be here and just looking forward to being back to normal, which will hopefully come here shortly." (Continued)