Carelli Returns to Glory After Near-Fatal Crash

Forgive Rick Carelli if that big ol’ smile continues to crease his face for a good long while.

The 45-year-old driver from Arvada, Colo., long known as racing’s “High Plains Drifter,” won the Kroger 200 last week at Richmond, Va., punctuating a remarkable 16-month comeback from a near-fatal crash in which he suffered a fractured skull, among other injuries.

“It sort of put an exclamation point on everything that I’ve been through,” Carelli said this week of his fourth NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory and first since his truck collided with a wall at Memphis, Tenn., on May 8, 1999, after a front tire blew.

Carelli, a former Winston West and Southwest Tour champion and a familiar figure at Southern California short tracks for many years, held off challenges from the powerhouse Roush Racing tandem of Greg Biffle and Kurt Busch over the final 20 laps in front of 40,000 at Richmond International Raceway.

Afterward, Carelli damaged his truck so badly during an exuberant, tire-smoking victory lap that his Ford had to be pushed home while he walked to victory lane.

He might well have floated.

“When I crossed the finish line, I had so much emotion,” he told reporters. “I can’t explain it. There was elation and a lot of tears.”

Back home with his wife, Cathy, and their three children--two sons and a daughter--Carelli was more composed but still a little stunned.

“I was looking at the trophy,” he said, “and I realized what we went through, Cathy and myself, to get to this point and to be competitive enough to win. It just shows that when you don’t give up and believe in yourself and everything you do, nothing’s impossible.

“It put a big ol’ smile on my face, I’ll tell you that much.”

Sixteen months earlier, at Memphis Motorsports Park, Carelli’s face was gripped with fear as he saw the wall rapidly approaching.

It had been less than a month since he’d won a race at Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield, and he was sixth in the points standings as he competed in the Memphis 200.

But here came that wall.

“I remember saying, ‘Oh [bleep], this is going to hurt,’ ” Carelli later told the Denver Post.

Moments earlier, the left front of Carelli’s truck had collided with the back end of Lance Norrick’s truck, the metal from the damage scraping Carelli’s left front tire as he continued to circle the track, smoke billowing from the tire.

A spotter told Carelli over the radio that he needed to pit, but Carelli wanted to ride out one more lap.

Before he could, the tire blew and his truck headed into the wall.

After the collision, Carelli remembers, he tried to jerk his helmet off because he felt “claustrophobic.” He knew something was wrong. Once he got his helmet off, he grabbed his face and saw the blood. He was bleeding, heavily, from his ears.

“There was so much adrenalin rolling in me,” he told the Denver Post. “I said, ‘Whatever it was going to be, I’m not going to leave this world.’ ”

Cathy, who attended every race and managed his team, climbed into the ambulance beside him.

“I put us in a pickle now, hon,” Carelli told his wife.

He had suffered a concussion, a cracked skull, nerve damage, blood clots and considerable bleeding internally and through his ears. The skull fracture caused major vision problems and left him with no depth perception.

Taken to the Elvis Presley Trauma Center, Carelli saw two of everything. He had double vision. He would remain hospitalized for 14 days, eight in intensive care.

Over the next three weeks, he would lose about 25 pounds.

Slowly and patiently, however, he would fully recover.

Despite his numerous injuries, the rehabilitation process consisted largely of letting his head heal. There were no complications from a stretched carotid artery, which could have led to a stroke.

Ear surgery was needed to restore his equilibrium and allow him to fly, but no other surgery was required. Tests showed the bleeding in his ears was from a ruptured blood vessel in his sinus cavity.

Told that his double vision would last for about a year, Carelli said he was seeing as well as ever after only four months.

Still, the accident so spooked his team owner, Marshall Chesrown, that Chesrown, as much a friend as an employer, folded the team.

“In Marshall’s defense, a couple of days into the hospital stay he turned to me and said, ‘I don’t ever want to see him in a race car again,’ ” Cathy Carelli told the Chicago Tribune. “It was a personal decision.”

But it was a decision that left Carelli without a ride.

Last September, he signed on to manage teams on the Winston West Series and Featherlite Southwest Tour, but what he really wanted was to race.

In November, he got behind the wheel again, testing for team owner Dale Phelon in Phoenix.

In February, he was a winner again on the Featherlite Southwest Tour, leading wire to wire in the Copper World Classic at Phoenix.

Racing for Phelon Motorsports of Aiken, S.C., Carelli was back on the track for the truck season opener at Daytona Beach, Fla., where he finished seventh.

His season quickly deteriorated after that, however, as he finished 20th or worse seven times in the next eight races while battling a series of mechanical problems in his No. 66 Ford F-150. His fifth-place finish at Chicago last month was his best of the season before the breakthrough at Richmond.

Still, even after winning, he is only 15th in the points race.

Not that he was thinking much about that this week.

“This is something a lot of people don’t live from,” he said of his accident. “The first thing I decided was I had to live first. Last year, there were doubts in my mind [about returning to racing].

“I thought about giving it up, but I love this sport too much. It’s all I’ve done for twentysomething years. You get around it, it’s hard to leave. I wasn’t going to stay on my porch and stop living. I was getting back in the truck.”

Even his competitors were moved by Carelli’s comeback.

As Carelli passed him after taking the checkered flag at Richmond, Mike Wallace triumphantly stuck his fist in the air.

Welcome back, Rick.

MOTO MARATHON

As many as 25 teams are expected to compete starting Saturday at noon in the Toyota/WERA/G.M.D. Computrack 24-Hour Motorcycle National Endurance Race at Willow Springs International Raceway in Rosamond, about 90 miles north of Los Angeles in the Antelope Valley.

Billed as the nation’s only 24-hour motorcycle grand prix, the unique event features teams of four to seven riders competing on a mostly unlighted track using one motorcycle. They rely on headlights and reflector tape to make their way through the nine turns in the 2.5-mile road course.

The only lights on the track will be on the half-mile front straightaway, to aid in scoring.

Pit stops occur every 60 to 90 minutes, with riders being changed, fuel added, tires changed and any other repairs made. Riders are limited to a maximum of two hours riding before they must take a mandatory 30-minute break.

Team Suzuki Endurance established the event record in 1991 by making it around the track 886 times in 24 hours.

That’s 2,215 miles.

LAST LAPS

James Weston, 34, of Goleta, who has clinched the season championship at Irwindale Speedway, found out this week that he is also the Pacific Coast region champion. Watson, who won 10 of his 16 NASCAR late model starts at Irwindale and finished among the top five in all 16, easily outdistanced all the region’s other contenders in NASCAR’s Exide ShorTrack Series. Using a mathematical formula to determine a regional champion, the series pits drivers from NASCAR tracks in California, Alaska and Nevada. Watson’s point total placed him No. 2 nationally behind Mike Reynolds of the Heartland Region, who won 14 of 18 starts at Nashville Speedway.

Dave Villwock and Miss Budweiser, having already clinched team owner Bernie Little’s 20th national championship, are the featured attractions this weekend in the San Diego Bayfair’s Ralph’s/Food4Less Bill Muncey Cup at Mission Bay, the final event of the season in the Budweiser Unlimited Hydroplane Series and part of the Bayfair’s World Series of Power Boat Racing. Villwock, who has clinched the driver’s championship for the third consecutive year and fourth time in five years, has won the Bayfair event four times. Practice and qualifying start today, with the finals scheduled for Sunday.

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This Week’s Races

WINSTON CUP, Dura Lube 300

* When: Today, first-round qualifying, 1 p.m.; Saturday, second-round qualifying, 8 a.m. (TNN, 9 a.m.); Sunday, race (TNN, 9:30 a.m.)

* Where: New Hampshire International Speedway (oval, 1.058 miles, 12 degrees banking in turns), Loudon, N.H.

* Race distance: 317.4 miles, 300 laps.

* Last year: Joe Nemechek earned his first Winston Cup victory, taking advantage when Dale Jarrett was penalized a lap for stopping with his right side outside his box on pit road.

* Last race: Jeff Gordon passed Jeff Burton on the first lap of a restart with 15 laps to go and won the Chevrolet 400 in Richmond, Va. The victory was the 52nd of Gordon’s career.

* Next race: MBNA.com 400, Sept. 24, Dover, Del.

* On the net: https://www.nascar.com

CART, Motorola 300

* When: Today, first-round qualifying, 1 p.m. (ESPN2, 10:30 p.m.); Saturday, second-round qualifying, 11 a.m.; Sunday, race (ESPN2, 11:30 a.m.)

* Where: Gateway International Raceway (egg-shaped oval, 1.27 miles, 11 degrees banking in turns 1-2, 9 degrees in turns 3-4), Madison, Ill.

* Race distance: 299.72 miles 236 laps.

* Last year: Michael Andretti finished .329 seconds--about 1 1/2 car-lengths--ahead of Helio Castroneves.

* Last race: Castroneves dominated, winning the Honda Grand Prix in Monterey, Calif. He led all but two laps. Gil de Ferran took over the series points lead as the teammates started and finished 1-2.

* Next race: Texaco-Havoline Grand Prix, Oct. 1, Houston.

* On the net: https://www.cart.com

NHRA, Keystone Nationals

* When: Today, qualifying, 11:45 a.m.; Saturday, qualifying, 8:15 a.m.; Sunday, final eliminations, 8 a.m. (ESPN2, 6:30 p.m.)

* Where: Maple Grove Raceway, Mohnton, Pa.

* Last year: Joe Amato won his fifth Top Fuel title of the season, beating Tony Schumacher. Tommy Johnson Jr., Jeg Coughlin Jr. and Matt Hines also won in their categories.

* Last event: Cruz Pedregon won his 22nd career NHRA title at the rain-delayed Matco Tools Supernationals in Englishtown, N.J. Doug Kalitta, Jeg Coughlin and Angelle Seeling also were winners in their categories.

* Next race: Advance Auto Parts Nationals, Oct. 1, Topeka, Kan.

* On the net: https://www.nhra.com