Hard-luck Nadeau looking for a big break

Jerry Nadeau sat inside his broken-down car for what seemed to be an eternity. With a victory in his grasp just seconds earlier, he could not believe he'd lost another race so close to the finish line.

In a one-race deal for Petty Enterprises last week, he drove the No. 44 Dodge to the front and had a commanding lead when a gear broke with two laps left. Unable to coast around the road course in Sonoma, Calif., he pulled over and sat dejectedly while Ricky Rudd led the rest of the field across the finish line.

He was near tears when he finally climbed from the car, a victim yet again in the waning moments of a race. That's just the way it seems to go for Nadeau, a hard-luck racer who never seems to catch a break.

"I think everybody knows that I won that race, I just didn't make it to the end, and that's a bum deal," he said, his spirits considerably higher during a telephone interview while taking a break during a test session in Chicago.

"What am I supposed to do? I can't go home and beat my dog because of it. I can't get out of the car and kick the tires. It's just one of those things that I have to deal with."

He's certainly had enough practice learning how to cope with frustration.

Nadeau ran out of gas while leading on the final lap of the season-finale in Atlanta last year, his car stalling out as Bobby Labonte coasted to victory. A few months earlier, he'd been dominant in the inaugural race at Chicago when he lost his motor.

He's been snakebit at least twice in Charlotte, N.C., once leading 115 laps of the Coca-Cola 600 only to blow an engine with 40 laps to go in 2000. A year later, he ran up front all night and was in second place when his car slipped out of gear and fell off the pace.

If Nadeau didn't have such bad luck, he'd surely have no luck at all.

"If I knew why it kept happening to me, don't you think I'd figure out a way to stop it?" he said. "Losing races has turned into the story of my life, so I think I've grown out of the 'Get mad' part of it because of all the stuff that has happened to me. Now it just makes me stronger and more humble."

This has certainly been a humbling year for Nadeau. Out of a full-time job since May when he was released from his contract with Hendrick Motorsports, he's been patiently waiting to see what his future holds.

Once a teammate to Winston Cup champions Jeff Gordon and Terry Labonte and rookie phenom Jimmie Johnson, Nadeau is now trolling the garage area on a weekly basis looking for work.

He understands that being at the track each week -- even if only as a fan -- is crucial.

"If you're out of sight, you're out of mind," Nadeau said. "So you have to be at the track every week even if you aren't racing."