Carbon monoxide poisoning forces Mast to retire

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Years of breathing fumes in a race car has given NASCAR driver Rick Mast carbon monoxide poisoning that will end his career.

Mast, who has not raced since May, said Wednesday he is suffering from acute and chronic carbon monoxide poisoning that carries symptoms similar to "the worst hangover in your life."

"You wake up feeling nauseated and you want to throw up and you can't," Mast said. "Your head is pounding all the time and you just feel awful. That is what I lived with for five and a half weeks, seven days a week."

Mast, who made 364 starts over a 15-year Winston Cup career, said he began feeling ill in March but didn't get of the car until May.

It took dozens of visits to various doctors before he was finally diagnosed in November -- he said he lost 43 pounds in that time -- and there is no timetable for when the poisoning will be out of his system.

The only thing he knows for certain is that he can no longer be around chemicals that are spinoffs of carbon monoxide, an odorless, colorless, tasteless gas that is in everything from a car's exhaust to poorly ventilated heating systems.

That means everything from racing cars to using a lawnmower and riding a tractor on his Virginia farm are off limits to Mast.

"I cut grass one day in June and the air was blowing just a certain way and the fumes were blowing and I was down for five days after it," Mast said.

The 45-year-old driver from Virginia can't pin his illness on NASCAR, although he is now working with the sanctioning body to educate other drivers on the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Because he has been around race cars since he was 4-years-old, Mast said the lifetime of exposure to the fumes is probably to blame.

"I was a grease monkey of sorts," he said. "In the winter time, we worked in the garage with the doors shut and the windows closed and all the cars running."

Still, NASCAR is taking a proactive approach to the problem.

Gary Nelson, NASCAR's managing director of competition, accompanied Mast while he discussed the illness during an informal announcement at the annual media tour.

Mast first told NASCAR about the poisoning after he was diagnosed in November, and the sanctioning body immediately went to work on ways to prevent it.

A lab was built into NASCAR's new research and development center, and all drivers were asked if they had an air filter system they used in their car that they wanted NASCAR to test for them.

"We have found plenty of systems that didn't work that were being used," Nelson said. "What we're looking for is a way to get drivers to breathe the freshest air possible in the car.

"The way to do that is to find a way to bring air from the outside through a hose into the helmet."

NASCAR has even tested some drivers for toxic levels in their body, including Jimmy Spencer following his fiery wreck in the season-finale in Homestead, Fla.

Nelson said Spencer's toxic level was less than 3 percent. Major problems begin when the level nears 20 percent, Nelson said.