I've always held Carmack in very high regard. He's one of the few folks in our field where if he says he didn't my gut tells me to believe him. Here's to justice being served, one way or another. There's a great comment from a user "Netherhigal" on the comments for the article that says: "If it were anyone else saying they rewrote the code from scratch, I'd call bullshit. With Carmack though? I'd believe he sneezed onto the keyboard and functioning code happened."

Pretty much sums up my opinion as well :)