THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 11, 1995 TAG: 9502100657
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: NASCAR '95: Season Preview
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
Last August, NASCAR racing nearly lost one of its brightest stars in a crash at Michigan.
Ernie Irvan's skull was cracked, his brain badly battered. But he pulled through. And now the only thing keeping him from returning to the track is double vision from nerve damage in his left eye.
Irvan isn't the only Winston Cup driver fighting to save his career after a head injury suffered during a crash in 1994.
And the strange thing is, Chuck Bown walked away from his wreck, which came just as his career was beginning to roll.
Bown, 40, one of the nicest drivers in the garage, had come from the Grand National ranks, where he had won the championship in 1990. Finally, in 1994, he landed a decent Winston Cup ride. He had Bobby Allison's Ford. The team didn't have a regular sponsor yet, but it was a decent car.
At Bristol in April, Bown won the pole. A couple of weeks later, he scored his first top-10 finish, a seventh at Martinsville.
But at Pocono in June, Bown spun in turn 1 early in the race. He was T-boned by Sterling Marlin and driven to the wall. It was a hard crash. It took Bown five minutes to regain his senses. Once he woke up, however, he crawled out of the car and walked to the ambulance.
Bown went to the infield care center, and then a medical helicopter flew him to a hospital. But it was obviously just a precaution. After all, when you see a driver walk away from a crash, you expect the issue concludes there. End of story. He'll be sore tomorrow and Tuesday, but he'll be back next Friday good as ever.
But when Bown tried to come back the following week, he couldn't drive. His eye wouldn't let him.
``It's kind of an odd thing because from day one, I've been able to see extremely good,'' he said. ``And my right eye, which is the problem eye, has been better than 20/20. And I don't get any double vision doing normal activities.
``The problem is the nerve ending that controls the right eye. Under racing conditions, with the G-forces, the vibrations, the bumps and the speed, it won't keep up. And the right eye kind of sees stuff in a different location than the left eye.
``But it's a little bit worse than that, because it's not only double vision, but in the right eye the vision is kinda jumping around, too. It won't hold a true projection. So it kinda dances around. I was only unconscious for five minutes. It was no big deal. But it just zapped one nerve, and that's all it takes.''
It was difficult even to say he had a concussion.
``I really didn't have any head-injury symptoms whatsoever. Never did,'' Bown said. ``No memory loss or dizziness. I never had any brain swelling or bleeding. Everything was fine except it knocked my right eye out. And I'm still waiting for that to go away.
``At Michigan, a week after the wreck, I thought I was going to be able to drive. I didn't realize I had the problem until I got up to speed in a race car. And I tried it again a few weeks later. It was the same deal, maybe a tiny bit better. But it was still a problem.''
In a cruel twist of fate, about the only other time Bown has a problem with the eye is when he is engaging in one of his favorite pastimes - golf.
``Sometimes watching a golf ball fly through the air as I'm following it in flight and it's traveling fast, I'll get a little bit of double vision,'' he said. ``But it's a smooth double vision. It doesn't jerk around.''
On Feb. 1, Bown took Mike Chase's Active Motorsports Chevy out on the 3/4-mile track at Richmond. It was his first test in a number of months. The double image in his right eye had disappeared, but his vision was still a bit jumpy. And so he looks toward 1995 with the same uncertainty as Irvan.
Bown thinks he's almost ready to race again, but even when he is ready, he must find a ride.
In the meantime, he's been busy lining up work. He'll work as a broadcaster for the Motor Racing Network and TNN. And he's helping Chase learn the ropes in the No. 32 Chevy.
``It's not bad, but I'd a lot rather be driving,'' he said. ``I expected it to heal long ago, but after seven months it's still not completely like it's supposed to be. So you just never know.
``No doctor can really say for sure. It's all a guess. They really can't see the problem. It doesn't show up on CAT scans or MRI. So it's just an educated guess is all it is.'' by CNB