Two-time NHRA Pro Modified champion Stevie "Fast" Jackson knows a thing or two about high-stakes drag racing. The stakes couldn't have been any higher than they were last Tuesday when the iconic doorslammer drag racer made his first runs since undergoing neck surgery last December to repair injuries sustained while racing decades earlier. 

Jackson knew the first time he nailed the throttle in the Camaro on loan from his Artivinco team owner Sidnei Frigo; he would learn whether the surgery worked. 

"I don't want to use the term scared. I was apprehensive about it was going to make my neck feel," Jackson said. "I asked myself, 'Is this going to be good for my neck?" 

Jackson had been cleared medically to drive a race car by his neurosurgeons three weeks earlier. NHRA reinstated his license, and all that was left for the vocal driver from Evans, Ga., could walk the walk from the talk that made him a fan favorite. 

The last two to three seasons had been pure hell for Jackson, who admitted the pain made him seek remedy at the end of 2022. 

"My neck would hurt so bad that I literally had to pull myself out of the car," Jackson admitted. "I wasn't worried about how I would feel in the first run, but after the third one."

But if it was going to be a one-and-done experiment, Jackson would get all he could out of the experience. 

Jackson had the crew put on a new set of slicks on the Camaro. He rolled through the waterbox and made up for missing the most time he's missed behind the wheel since he started drag racing some 20 years ago. Jackson hadn't driven a race car since the Q1 session at the Bradenton Snowbirds. 

Jackson, being Jackson, reeled off one of his trademark eighth-mile burnouts just like he did at one of the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Modified events.

Just had to show it who was boss," Jackson said.  

 

 

 

Jackson had a .011 light and tried to drive it to the stripe but lifted when it drifted to the left.

Jackson admitted he felt behind the car in the first couple of runs, but by the third pass, it was like riding a bike. But the biggest issue would not be reaction times or elapsed times; it would be how he felt at the end of each day. 

"After the first run, I get out, and I'm like, 'Oh man, my head feels pretty good," Jackson explained. "Second run, the head feels pretty good. After the first day, I woke up the next morning with no pain in my neck. That's when I realized, 'Okay, this is how I was supposed to feel to drive a race car." 

Jackson even encountered serious tire shake a couple of times.

"It banged me around pretty good, and I had zero pain, zero issues," Jackson said. "I feel like I'm at 100 percent."

Jackson ended up making seven passes in two days, and while he didn't reveal elapsed times, he confirmed they were qualifying quality and he was no worse than .03 on the tree. 

As much as Jackson credits his doctors for making life new for him, he credits Frigo for having faith in him. 

"It's a big step; you just hand your keys to somebody who hadn't driven in nine months and tell them to go have fun," Jackson said. "Just giving me the opportunity says a lot about Sidnei and the Artivinco team."

So what exactly did the doctors have to do?

Surgeons basically reconstructed Jackson's spine. According to Jackson, there was a portion of the disc that had moved internally into the spinal column and compressed the spinal cord. Surgeons went in, took the disc out, grafted some bone, removed some bone, put in a titanium cage, and fused the spine in one area. They applied an adhesive Jackson described as human super glue, and the rest depended on his cooperation with the healing process. 

"They told me that bone graft and the way they did that fusion, you don't get to do it again," Jackson explained. "If it's not a good fusion, the only way to fix it is to go back in there, re-break it, graft it again, and do it again."

Jackson followed the doctor's orders to the letter of the law.

"People have a choice every day of what we're going to do," Jackson said. "If you choose not to do what you're supposed to do, that's a choice. But when you're told you can't do what you're supposed to do and what you want to do, that's a tough pill for me to swallow."

Jackson wouldn't describe himself as a gym rat, but physical fitness has been part of his regimen for as long as he can remember. Last August, the pain had progressed to the point he could no longer work out. Basically, from August until March, his physical activities were limited. 
 

 

 

"The biggest road to recovery I had for me was to get my physical strength back," Jackson said. "I've always lifted a lot, and I've always done a pretty rigorous training, especially during the off-season physically. 

"I had little to no physical activity, and they were really strict on that. They said, 'We know you want to get back in the gym. We know you want to start working out again. If you do that, you're going to hurt yourself, which means a whole other six-month to eight-month recovery. So, I listened to them."

Once they cleared Jackson to begin exercise, he began walking several miles a day. In the inactivity, Jackson had gained 25 pounds and not muscle. 

"The biggest physical journey has been to gain strength back, lose some weight, get back comfortable in the car, and get to a position to where I feel like I'm strong again. So, in March, I started walking and felt good. April started doing some very light lifting. Once I got into May, and they cleared me to go back to the gym, I stood on the gas, and I haven't let off the gas since May."

Jackson said the healing process has been ahead of schedule.

"My neurosurgeon and orthopedic surgeon says that my neck is as good as anybody else's ever was," Jackson said. "It's hard to stay disciplined and do the things you're supposed to do, the physical therapy, all the traction exercises, all the stretching; it's really hard to do that because it's a pain in the ass. But you got to look at the end result. And my end result is, I want to get in a race car again."

Jackson, who currently manages Frigo's Artivinco Pro Modified team, said there is no timetable for when he could return to driving a race car. 

"We're building a new shop, a new facility, and that's eating a lot of time and resources," Jackson said. "I'm in the process of building a car to compete with, working on a trailer right now, and then getting the components together to go race. So, in the next 14 days, pretty quickly, I should have a timetable of when I think I'll be back in competition. 

"Right now, it's just securing the funding and the parts and pieces to do it. I have some stuff in the works that should allow me to start competing this season."

Jackson said just getting behind the wheel was an extremely positive step in his healing process.

"Getting in Sidnei's car and making seven good laps made it feel like it was worth it," Jackson said. "It was a huge weight off my shoulders to be able to do that and not have pain for the first time in a decade. It's tough when it hurts to do the thing that you love the most. And it was good. I'm very gracious for Sidnei letting me drive that thing. It's a big step in the right direction for me."