By Dick Mittman
allstate400atthebrickyard.com
Thursday, August 1, 2002
NASCAR team owner Jack Roush sends four drivers in the top 13 of the Winston Cup standings after victory in the ninth Brickyard 400 on Aug. 4 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And he could have four in the top 10, a history-making accomplishment, when the season ends in November. But when Roush talks about being "the luckiest man in the world," what's happening with his race team this season has nothing to do with it. The fact he is alive does. A flight in southern Alabama on his 60th birthday last April 19 in an experimental aircraft turned into a miracle experience that he'll marvel about the rest of his life. Roush's lightweight craft struck a wire and crashed into a lake. He easily could have been killed or drowned except for an incredible set of circumstances that rescued him from death. "I felt like I had three lottery tickets - one from New York, one from Pennsylvania and one from Michigan or Florida, wherever they have the biggest lotteries - and that I had won them all with three different tickets with three pet numbers on the same day," he said. Roush, wearing his trademark straw hat, leaned on a cane in the garage area of the Speedway during recent testing. It was the only visible sign of the aftermath of the crash. "I had to be the luckiest person on earth to be able to have survived that," he said. Roush received an initial concussion when the plane struck the wire. He lost consciousness, but somehow the plane descended at a shallow angle into the water not too far from shore instead of crashing into the trees or ground just beyond. When the plane struck the soft bottom of the lake, Roush's left leg was badly shattered. But there was an angel named Larry Hicks, an ex-Marine, on shore. A Vietnam veteran who had just recovered from respiratory cancer, he was regaining his strength at his lakeside home. Hicks was about to become a hero. "He was standing with his wife on his glassed-in back porch looking up and sees me come over and hit the wire," Roush said. Hicks moved into action. He had his wife call 911 while he dashed out to his dock. His brother had left a boat with a freshly charged electric motor moored to the dock. Hicks quickly arrived at the plane some 200 yards offshore where the water was about 6 feet deep. "Went down, looked it over, couldn't find me," Roush said of Hicks. "He went down again, found the back of my neck, found the seat belt harness, unhooked me and because I still had air in my lungs, I think, I popped right up. "And he got me started breathing right away. The rest is current history, not ancient history. I spent - between the concussion and the trauma - six weeks in the hospital." Roush was placed in a medically induced coma and lost a couple days of memory. But 24 hours after the accident, he was awake and writing notes to ask questions. "It humbles me and makes me want to know what I had to do to deserve all of this," he said. Roush offered more thanks to his rescuer by playing host to Hicks and 11 other family members or friends at the Pepsi 400 on July 6 at Daytona International Speedway. The accident forced Roush to slow his hectic pace and removed him from some of the frenzy of running a four-car Ford team. Roush veteran Mark Martin is second to Sterling Marlin in the standings, with Roush teammates Kurt Busch fifth, Matt Kenseth 10th and Jeff Burton 13th. "It seemed like almost from Daytona (500 in February) we started running better this year than we had last year," he said. Roush took blame for last season's poor showing. Burton was the best finisher at ninth in the points, while perennial title contender Martin slipped all the way to 17th. "I wasn't doing an exceptional job for any of my drivers last year," Roush said. "I was looking at myself and being saddened by the fact that for their potential and the support of the sponsors and everybody's hard work, we weren't getting the results we needed. "Instead of having a purge and coming back and deciding we had people at the wrong skill sets, we look at the people and decided that they were able to be doing what we needed to be doing. Chemistry-wise, we just weren't getting it done." The major change made was switching of the younger crew from Busch's car to Martin's and placing the veteran crew with the younger driver. But Roush feels the major difference is the crews have become more familiar with the Ford Taurus body shape within, as he puts it, the gray areas that NASCAR will let you work. "We've got cars this year that are more like the Ford cars that were being successful last year, and it's working," he said. "I think, unless we have a siege of broken engines or something, we can be a factor in the championship this year. We've got the prospect of all of our cars finishing in the top 12 or 15." The change has rejuvenated Martin, 43, whom Roush said had intended to drive to the end of his contract with Pfizer in 2005. Roush indicated discussions are in progress now to extend Martin's career with the team. Martin has won three IROC races at Indy, but a fourth place in 1999 is his only top 10 in the Brickyard. Despite the miracle of Roush's survival, he hasn't given up on flying an experimental aircraft again. Another plane is under construction. "I expect in the next six months to be in Alabama, fly that same route and have a chance to understand where that wire was that I hit," he said.
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