CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- If home is indeed where the heart is, Jerry Nadeau will no longer be living there.

Still recovering from near fatal head injuries suffered in a crash last May at Richmond, Va., Nadeau has undergone a dramatic transformation physically, mentally and materialistically.

He's had to re-learn how to walk, and continues to experience crash-related maladies such as slowed and slightly slurred speech and numbness on the left side of his body.

The latest devastation hit Friday. Less than two years after Nadeau and wife Jada built their dream house -- a large, expansive homestead in Mooresville, N.C., fit for a well-paid Cup driver -- the Nadeaus were forced to say goodbye, walking out the front door for the last time after signing papers that sold the dream.

"I had to sell my house because it's a big house, and in racing, you make good money," Nadeau said. "Now that I'm not racing, I have to downgrade and sell off some stuff just to be able to survive. But, it's been OK. (The crash) definitely changed my whole life and how I look at my whole life."

Nadeau jokes about "downsizing," but you can see the sorrow in his eyes at the same time.

"We're going to move to Davidson (N.C.)," he said. "Instead of being up here (he motions upward with his hand), I'm down there, being just a normal person."

Like most other Nextel Cup drivers who are independent contractors to their teams instead of full-time employees, Nadeau was fortunate in carrying a high-priced health insurance policy at the time of the crash.

While the premiums were expensive, the policy proved its weight in gold in preventing total financial devastation for Nadeau and his family, paying for most of the medical bills he has incurred since the crash, as well as a disability stipend.

"My insurance pretty much gives me so much a month," Nadeau said. "If I don't ever come back to racing, there's a certain amount of money, but I can't retire on it. It's not race car driver-class (money), not at all."

Nadeau's spirit, like his body, has been broken, but is slowly mending. He's frustrated that the recovery is taking much longer than he hoped. He wants to be in a Nextel Cup car so badly, even on a part-time basis, yet his body continues to betray him. He talks about potentially entering some Busch or ARCA series races in 2004, but knows he's also still a long way from doing so.

"I would love to say yes (about coming back this season), but my mind doesn't seem to be working as good as it used to be," Nadeau says forlornly. "There's not much you can do to help a brain injury. You just have to let the nerves and the cells kind of hook up with each other on their own. There's nothing I can do to help that."

	Jerry Nadeau was pulled out of the roof of his car on a backboard after a hard crash at Richmond.

In person, Nadeau still looks much the same as he did before his crash. But there are signs that all is not well. His speech is still occasionally slurred. He stumbles a bit in pronouncing larger words. His left arm is not as mobile or strong as his right. The left side of his body sags slightly from the lingering numbness.

On the other hand, you can't help but notice the fire that still burns in his eyes. Nadeau would do anything to climb back into a stock car. But because his body and mind won't allow it, he's left in a state of limbo.

Has he gotten to the point that he's prepared to never race again?

"We haven't reached that point," Nadeau said. "Obviously, my doctor is very optimistic that I'm going to get better. I'm optimistic, too, but it's hard to be because I'm living in my body every day and I can't really feel that I'm getting better.

"I think if I can get out of my body, put it in a corner for four months and then get back into it, I would probably notice a difference. But when I talk to people every day and they're saying 'How are you doing? Are you better? Are you doing good?', well, it's hard to tell.

"My speech is a little bit slower, my left side is still numb and I still feel a little wobbly. I tested a Cup car, and my racing is still the same. I still feel like I can race the car. I think we're like two-tenths (of a second) off what a normal Cup car does. My biggest problem is I couldn't feel the brake pedal. I couldn't sense how hard to push on the brake pedal."

But just a moment later, after his answer silenced the small crowd of reporters surrounding him, Nadeau reverts back to his old self, trying to put a comic twist on his future.

"If I can't race, obviously I have to do something. I can't just retire because of my good looks," he says with a big smile on his face. "I didn't expect to end my racing career this early. If I don't get to race, maybe I can do some TV commentary once my voice gets better and stay involved somewhat."

Staying involved in Cup racing is equally as important as his actual physical rehabilitation. Unfortunately because of his injuries, there's not a whole lot Nadeau can provide in terms of assistance to the team.

When asked what his role with the MB2 Motorsports team and main sponsor the U.S. Army is now, Nadeau responds in an almost reluctant manner, followed by his tendency to recall when times were better for him.

	"	My mind doesn't seem to be working as good as it used to be. There's not much you can do to help a brain injury. You just have to let the nerves and the cells kind of hook up with each other on their own. There's nothing I can do to help that. "
		— Jerry Nadeau

"My role with the team? I'd have to say supporter. Really, that's all I can do. I can't race, which I love to do. As a team, we were getting so much better in 2003. I mean, the first (six) races were pretty miserable, but then we started coming along. We got fourth at Texas and finished 14th at California (less than a week before his wreck). It's been disappointing, but I'm coming along as fast as I can."

Nadeau suffered extensive brain injuries from the crash. Information gleaned from the black box data recorder in his race car showed the impact to be the hardest hit ever recorded in Winston Cup since NASCAR began keeping track two seasons ago.

Ironically, Jason Keller had a nearly-identical crash -- with the same type of crushing impact -- at the same Richmond International Raceway four months later and walked away unscathed due to the installation of SAFER barriers (so-called "soft walls") in the racetrack's corners after Nadeau's crash.

"We studied Jerry Nadeau's accident real thoroughly to try and understand how an injury like that happens and then how we can prevent it from happening again," said NASCAR safety director Gary Nelson. "The biggest thing we saw and the change we saw when we went back to the track in the fall after Jerry was injured was the SAFER barrier was up.

"Jason Keller hit actually a little harder, the same, exact driver's side hit, and he was not injured. He was ready to test again two days later. So, we studied the things about what was different and what was the same about those two accidents, and as we went through it, we realized that wall did so much more than we had ever seen in testing to that type of a wreck."

Added Nadeau's new teammate, rookie Scott Riggs, who replaces Johnny Benson behind the wheel of the No. 10 Chevrolet: "All of us wish Jerry didn't get hurt, but are glad to see he's recovering as well as he is.

"At the same time, we all try to learn from it, to try and make our cars safer and try to learn from accidents such as Jerry's as far as what went wrong, what malfunctioned and what can we do better."

While several big-name drivers have suffered slight concussions in crashes over the last three years, three wrecks have received considerable notoriety because they involved varying degrees of brain injury, from Steve Park's wreck at Darlington, S.C., in Sept. 2001 and resulting lengthy comeback, to Dale Earnhardt Jr. keeping a lingering concussion secret from NASCAR for nearly six months after a crash at California in April 2002, to the most serious of the three crashes, Nadeau's last May.

While mandated head-and-neck restraining devices, as well as the installation of the SAFER barrier at several racetracks has helped, Nelson said NASCAR is continuing to explore ways to further minimize cerebral injuries in the future.

Nadeau knows the margin between his living and the death of Winston Cup legend Dale Earnhardt three years ago was razor thin, at best. And despite the slow recovery and rehabilitation, Nadeau doesn't mince words when asked to capsulize how he's feeling.

"I didn't realize that I was not breathing when the rescue workers came," he said. "I had a collapsed lung and they had to poke a hole and they were feeding me oxygen. When you're clinically dead, your brain loses oxygen and it doesn't function as well.

"Now that I'm alive and breathing air just like normal people, it takes a while for that brain to basically get back to normal. Other than that, I'm still moving along. I'm just lucky and happy to be alive."

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com. He can be reached at Motorsportwriter@MSN.com.