SONOMA, Calif. — It would be really easy for Ernie Irvan to wonder what might have been.
And no one would blame him. How could you blame a guy whose career was ruined by tragedy?
Irvan won 15 Cup races and was on top of the NASCAR world when he got a serious head injury in 1994. He returned to full-time competition two years later and won three more Cup races, but was never the same after the injury and retired in the middle of the 1999 season.
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Irvan was battling for the Cup championship in August of 1994, trailing Dale Earnhardt by just 27 points.