One moment, Jason Workman was looking to contend for the 2008 KONI Challenge Street Tuner championship, coming off a strong run at Daytona.
Suddenly, the 31-year-old Georgian found himself in grave condition and fighting for his life following a freak accident.
"I got sucker punched pretty good, man," Workman recalled of the Feb. 26 incident at Moroso Motorsports Park, where he was driver coaching. "They brought us into the pits next to the awning, because it was starting to get pretty bad out. From what I hear, I had just started to get out of the car when I got hit. I don't remember any of it."
A gust of wind dislodged a 55-gallon water barrel anchoring the awning and hurled it in the direction of the car. Tom McDermott, the driver of the Ariel Atom 2, was grazed by the barrel before it hit Workman in the head and upper body. McDermott spent a few hours in the emergency room before being released. Workman wasn't as lucky.
"I was crushed," Workman said. "I did have a head injury, but luckily for me, it wasn't a bad one. My brain's fine and there's no repercussions from that. The main thing was from the trauma from having so many broken bones. I broke 11 ribs, both shoulder blades, right clavicle, right humerus, L-1 vertebrae. With a head injury, they put me in a medically induced coma right off the bat."
Five months later, Workman is back working. He's currently in Washington, D.C., working on an event for Chrysler, one week after working on a program with Marlboro Penske.
"The past few weeks, I've had one night at home. I hit it full bore, man," Workman said Wednesday during a break while doing set-up for the Washington driving course. "It's still hard every day, but it gets better. I want my life back. I jogged for the first time yesterday. It was hard, but I've got to do it."
Workman is already looking forward to getting back in John Vincent's No. 24 V-Pack Garra-fans.com BMW 330 he co-drives with Sam Schultz in the KONI Challenge. The team is planning to have him back in the car for the Oct. 4 six-hour season finale at Virginia International Raceway.
"I'm going to try, but I don't know," Workman said. "I can say right now there's no way, but by then I'm going to try. The team wants me back really bad, even if I do just a short stint in the car. I'm going to try my best.
"I think the hardest thing for me in that car is going to be braking, because it brakes so hard and deep, there's so many lateral G's on your upper body," Workman said. "I have no idea what it's going to be like, and I don't want to do it unless I'm ready. At least I want to get some laps in the car, maybe towards the end of the session when there are not too many people out. It's all up to me. I'll know when I get there.
"I'm going to be at VIR, regardless."
Workman spent nearly two months at St. Mary's Hospital in West Palm Beach, Fla. Originally listed in grave condition, he struggled through the first week following the accident. Then, he began to show dramatic progress.
"If you didn't know what happened to me, you probably wouldn't know it," Workman said. "The doctors won't say it's a miracle, but it's one of those stories. I came out of a huge event, and got lucky. I'm the luckiest unlucky guy in the world. It broke my L-1 vertebrae, but it just didn't break in the right way to paralyze me.
"When I first came out of the hospital, they said, ‘You're lucky to be alive.' I was like, ‘Get back to me, man, I can barely move.' Now, though, the average person wouldn't know it unless I said something."
Workman misses his golf game. That may have to wait even longer than his return to racing.
"My right humerus - the bone underneath your bicep - snapped in half and I was too unstable for them to operate on it," Workman said. "It's going to take five or six months until I play golf. One of my first questions was golf, because I'm an avid golfer and I miss it. But everything else is OK. All the other injuries have healed. I've been cleared by everyone but the orthopedic doctor."
Since his accident, Zach Arnold has co-driven with Schultz, with their best finish 12th at Mosport. The team's best finish remains the January event at Daytona.
Schultz qualified the V-Pack BMW 20th for the season-opening Fresh From Florida 200. He jumped the start and had to serve a drive through penalty, putting him at the rear of the field. Schultz then drove like a man on a mission, driving from 50th to 15th. Workman took over where Schultz left off, getting as high as fifth before the car began to run out of fuel with two laps remaining. Vincent calculated that they would fall back to at least 12th if they pitted, so he had Workman ride it out, finishing eighth.
"On the last two laps of green we gave up three positions, which was better than seven," Vincent said.
Tuesday night, Workman got together with several of his teammates, who picked him up and drove to Annapolis for dinner. "It was great to see the team again," Workman said. "I miss the guys. I had a really good ride, and it was working real good.
"I'll be back next year.
- By J.J. O'Malley -- photo Grandam -
