Hmiel Still Has Driving Force

Courtesy 3 Wide Life

The racer hadn’t raced in more than two years, not since the paralyzing accident pulled the emergency brake on the speed that defined him. Speed made the racer feel normal — empowered, even — when nothing else could. The racer yearned to feel the rush again to harness the unbridled fury like a thoroughbred leaving the stable.

After the accident, the racer had been rebuilt to race at the behest of his father, also a racer. His back was destroyed when his helmet hit the bare concrete wall, but doctors implanted a pair of 18-inch metal rods vertically along his spine to allow him to sit up straight in the cockpit. Not that there was much chance for that, they said. His doctors said he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Ever again.