Sports-car driver Memo Gidley was behind the wheel of a car -- a van, to be more precise -- on Friday, on his way to the 25 Hours of Thunderhill at Thunderhill Raceway Park in Willows, Calif.

It still felt a little strange that he wasn’t going there to race.

Not yet, anyway.

“I would prefer to be driving a race car, but any kind of driving is still good,” Gidley said. “Getting to these races and seeing people is not my first choice. I'd rather be driving a race car. But getting out there and doing things is for sure part of the healing and motivation that makes you push just a little bit harder. It's all good.”

Gidley, who suffered a broken back, along with knee, heel and elbow injuries in a freak crash in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona on Jan. 25, is still a long way from racing. However, he told Autoweek on Friday that he’s made great strides since his accident and is looking forward to returning to sports-car racing.

“Without a doubt, in my mind, 100 percent I will be back into a race car,” Gidley said. “I think even if you ask my current doctors, they would say, ‘yeah, he’s going to be back in a car.’ All the bones are healing nicely. Everything is healing up.

“I did have two knee surgeries recently to clear up some fragments in one knee and to remove hardware in another knee. I have one more surgery planned for my elbow in about two weeks, but I will definitely be back driving. It’s just a matter of when I’m totally healed and strong like I want to be.”

Gidley was on the overall winning team at Thunderhill in 2012. While he won’t be on the podium this weekend, Gidley will be celebrating the latest victory of sorts in his nearly yearlong -- and counting --recovery process.

“Without a doubt,” Gidley said. “Four months ago, I wasn't driving more than 10-15 minutes before I would have to get out of the car. Today, I'm going to drive a couple hours up to Thunderhill. That's almost a stint, I think!”

Gidley, 44, drove the No. 99 Chevrolet Corvette DP for Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing at Daytona. He was injured when his car ran into the back of a slowed Ferrari 458 driven by Matteo Malucelli. The crash occurred less than three hours into the 24-hour marathon.

“I don't remember the first week, week and a half [after the crash], and I'm so thankful for that,” Gidley said. “If I could almost erase the entire year, that would be perfect, too. It could have been worse.

“Even though this year has been so challenging, and so much of it I would like to totally erase, it's also on the other side really made me more aware of a lot of things that are going on. It's really opened my eyes to a lot of things. It makes me more appreciative of who I am and what I've done.”

Though Gidley does not remember the crash or the days immediately following it, he has dissected the video of the incident. He calls it a learning opportunity, not only for him, but hopefully, for the sport.

“I have gone back and looked at it,” he said. “People bring it up all the time. It's really one of those situations where hopefully there's some learning that goes on. Whenever you're in racing, and there's an accident, people look to do something different. They look at safety or how things can be changed so the same thing doesn’t happen again.

“Looking back on it, there's not a lot I could have done differently because I never saw anything. I never knew about anything that was going on. For sure, if I was the driver in that Ferrari 458 that I ran into, if I were going that slowly on the racetrack, especially on a narrow part of the racetrack like that, I would definitely get that car off the track. There's got to be a flag that comes out that lets us know there's a slow car on the racetrack.”

Gidley can’t wait for his own next race. When that will be, he’s not quite sure. He will say he’s seeing light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. He said that any return to racing is still months away.

“The No. 1 thing that you sort of have wait on is the fusion -- the healing of the bones in my vertebrae,” he said. “What happens is the bone starts filling in, but it's not visible on an X-ray until about year after it actually starts healing. Just on that alone -- it will be a year [out from the fusion surgery] in a couple months. After that, I still need to get stronger.

“I'm not on any heavy narcotic-type of pain medications, but I do take a type of medication for nerve pain. I want to be clear and free of everything before I get back in a car.”

Gidley is determined to make that happen. In the meantime, it’s all about taking one small step at a time and realizing how far he has come.

“Now I have fun on a daily basis,” he said. “Which is awesome.”

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