Clearwater police today released new photos of the car Nick Bollea was driving when it crashed nearly seven months ago, severely injuring his friend and passenger, John Graziano.

TAMPA -- Nearly seven months after suffering an incapacitating head injury in a crash, John Graziano has yet to regain consciousness but is making some progress, attorneys for his family said today.

Graziano, 23, remains in critical condition at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center, where Graziano's parents and attorneys appeared briefly this afternoon.

Graziano was injured Aug. 26 when he was a passenger in a Toyota Supra driven by Nick Bollea, 17, the son of pro wrestler Hulk Hogan. The Supra went out of control on a street near downtown Clearwater, spun and rammed into a palm tree with its back end. Witnesses say Bollea and another driver were racing, and Bollea faces a felony charge of reckless driving with serious bodily injury.

The family's attorneys said they hope to move Graziano, who served in the Marine Corps, into a medical rehabilitation wing at the VA hospital soon.

"We all have hope and prayers that he will regain consciousness," attorney Kimberley Kohn said. "We're talking about years of rehab before we know where John is going to be."

Whether a lawsuit will be filed in the wreck is a question of when, not if, the family's attorneys said. The family faces "astronomical" costs to care for Graziano in the future, attorneys said.

Earlier today, the Clearwater Police Department released scores of photos taken by police on the night of the wreck, both at the crash scene and at the hospital where Bollea and Graziano were taken. The photos were released in response to public records requests from journalists.

Many of the photos show the degree to which Bollea's car was mangled by its impact with the tree. Others show Graziano, his head bleeding and on a breathing tube, lying under a sheet. In one, a dressing is lifted to show a large, bloody gash in his forehead.

The attorneys said they looked into whether the release of the photos of Graziano would have violated medical privacy laws, but concluded that it did not because they were made as part of the investigation into the wreck.

"We've tried very hard to avoid a circus atmosphere, which is very hard in this case," attorney George Tragos said.

Last month, Daniel Jacobs, the 22-year-old man witnesses say they saw racing Bollea moments before his car wreck, pleaded no contest to reckless driving and was sentenced to 90 days of probation last month. He also was fined $500 and told to do 25 hours of community service.

-- Tamara El-Khoury, Times staff writer