Despite Near-Fatal Racing Accident, Jerry Nadeau Says, “I’m Still Here!”

Jerry Nadeau’s NASCAR career didn’t end with a retirement tour or a farewell speech. It ended with a thunderous impact into the Richmond wall during a routine practice session in May 2003. Just days earlier, he had been visiting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed. A week later, he was fighting for his life with a collapsed lung, five broken ribs, and severe head trauma. He’d never race in NASCAR again.

• Nadeau was wearing a HANS device, but not a containment seat, and Richmond didn’t yet have SAFER barriers installed.
• The side impact hit so hard it split the transmission in half and launched it through the floorboard.
• Jerry’s recovery was filled with memory gaps, panic attacks, and numbness on the entire left side of his body.
• When he tried to test again, he had blurred vision, poor coordination, and knew: “I wasn’t me anymore”

But Nadeau’s legacy didn’t vanish with the checkered flag. To those who worked with him, he had Hall of Fame-level talent. Even in that final practice, he passed cars on old tires that couldn’t touch him with fresh rubber. The wreck didn’t just end a career—it erased a future. And two decades later, Nadeau still feels that pull to the track, even if his body won’t follow.

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