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Park’s Win Adds Another Chapter To ‘TV Movie’ Career

Charlotte, NC (August 3, 2009) – Steve Park came full circle Saturday night winning the Edge Hotel 150 NASCAR Camping World Series East event at Adirondack Speedway (New Bremen, NY). The victory was his first in the division since capturing an event at the old Nazareth (PA) Speedway in 1996 – a full 13 years ago.

Given the road Park has traveled, it might as well have been 130 years ago.

Few racers have ever endured the hardships Park has since that 1996 win. While many have struggled and succeeded, their stories pale compared to the TV-movie script that is the racing career/life of Steve Park.

The son of NASCAR Featherlite Modified standout Bob Park, Steve Park quickly found a home in the high-powered open wheel cars. In 1990, Park made his NASCAR Busch (now Nationwide) Series debut at Nazareth steering a Bill Weeb Pontiac to a 28th-place finish. Seemingly on the fast track to the ‘big time,’ Park had to wait more than five years before again getting another chance in the NBS ranks.

That kind of delay and disappointment might have deflated other drivers, but not Park.

Park’s big break finally came in 1996 when Walker Evans put him in a truck for the Cummins 200 at Indianapolis Raceway Park. The 11th-place finish, followed by a fourth in the Truck Series at New Hampshire, caught the interest of the late Dale Earnhardt. Later that year, Earnhardt put Park in a Busch Series car at Charlotte and followed it up with a Truck Series ride for the young driver in the first-ever top division NASCAR race held at Las Vegas Speedway.

Park impressed in both and was seemingly on his way to racing glory.

Earnhardt strapped Park into a full-time Busch Series ride for the 1997 season and he didn’t disappoint winning three of 30 starts – his first career victory coming at the old Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. Park eventually posted third-place finish in the NBS points and also qualified for five of the nine Cup races he attempted that season for DEI with a season-best 15th-place finish at Atlanta.

It was at Atlanta one year later that Park’s career took a hard turn that altered his life forever. A blown right-front tire exiting turn four at full speed during practice sent Park’s Cup ride headlong into the outside retaining wall. The sickening thud was the first of two massive impacts, the second coming with the pit road retaining wall. The crash shattered Park’s leg and put him on the mend for the rest of the season.

Park returned to the Cup ranks in 1999 finishing a respectable 14th in the final season standings. A year later, he fulfilled the promise Earnhardt had seen in him winning his first Cup event – the Global Crossing At The Glen (Watkins Glen).

Park had finally arrived and he continued to shine throughout the 2000 season with 6 Top-5 and 13 Top-10 finishes, good enough for a ‘Chase-like’ 11th-place finish in the final Cup point standings that season.

The career climb continued for Park in 2001 when he drove a DEI Chevy to a win in the Dura Lube 400 at North Carolina Motor Speedway (Rockingham). The victory came just one week after Earnhardt died in a crash at the Daytona 500. Little did anyone know at the time that the win would mark the high point of Park’s driving career.

On September 1, 2001 in a Busch Series race at Darlington, Park was adjusting his steering wheel under caution when his car lurched left into the path of Larry Foyt’s racer. Foyt, who was speeding up the inside lane to take his position on the one-to-go lap, t-boned Park’s car in the driver’s side at an estimated 100 miles per hour. The impact left Park in a coma fighting for his life with a severe head injury.

Park amazingly survived the crash and despite predictions he would never get behind the wheel of a race car again, vowed he would again race someday. Amazingly, he did just that in 2002 at the same Darlington track that nearly took his life less than a year earlier.

Unfortunately, there were whispers that Park wasn’t the same – that the brain injury had dulled his skills. A series of wrecks, including a violent barrel-rolling epic (not a wreck of his own making) at Pocono only served to fuel the rumors.

Two poles and three Top-10 finishes in 2003 weren’t enough to keep Park in the Cup ranks, a year that saw him ‘traded’ to Richard Childress Racing at mid-season. By the end of the year, Park was let go by RCR and he hasn’t competed in a Cup race since.

Park found a home back in the Truck Series in 2004 with Brendan Gaughan’s Orleans Racing and over the next two seasons posted mixed results. The high point came when Park returned to Victory Lane winning the NCTS event at California in 2005 (High Sierra Photo Left). The win proved to be one of the most popular ever in the history of the division given the road Park had travelled to get there.

Park’s career seemingly ground to a halt by the end of the 2006 season. Just 10 Truck Series and six Busch events produced a single Top-10 finish and at the age of 38, Park appeared to be finished as a driver when he didn’t compete in any NASCAR premiere division events in 2007.

In fact, his only start in 2007 came at Dover where he wheeled a Camping World Series East car entered by Robert Torriere to an eighth-place finish. The effort proved to be the savior of Park’s career as the pair teamed up for a NCWSE effort in 2008 with Park posting eight Top-10 finishes in 13 events and a ninth-place finish in the points.

Then, on Saturday, Park finally tasted victory again leading the final five laps – the only laps he led all night – to win at Camping World Series East race Adirondack. The victory paid $8,000, a far cry from the $124,870 he collected for winning his first Cup event at Watkins Glen in 2000, but a priceless sum nonetheless.

Based on our unofficial research, Saturday’s win at Adirondack makes Park the only driver in the history of NASCAR to score wins in the Sprint Cup, Nationwide, Truck, Modified and Camping World East divisions.

Given the road traveled – along with the class, dignity, and easy-going manner he has earned those accomplishments – Park has rightfully gained the respect of the racing community. He’s also earned the right to be called one of NASCAR’s greatest and most courageous drivers.

Like we said, if they are ever looking to cast a made-for-TV movie, the Steve Park story is it. That is, after he’s scored a few more wins and ended his driving career on his terms.

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