NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Justin Hamel knows challenges. And knows how to overcome them.

The Holbrook, Neb., racer, who is in Las Vegas participating in the world championship showdown of the NHRA Summit Racing Equipment E.T. Series presented by Hoosier, races with hand controls after a July 25, 2011, motocross accident that crushed the C7 vertebra in his neck and put him in a wheelchair.

His resilience after his accident and his unquenched thirst for competition got him into drag racing three years later, a quarter-mile career that reached new heights after winning Pro E.T. at the Division 5 Summit Finals at SRCA Dragstrip to earn a shot at a world championship.

The long, 18-hour tow from Nebraska was almost at its end when the Hamel family’s rig was T-boned in an intersection in Kingman, Ariz., by a driver who blew through a red light at more than 70 mph, piledriving into the trailer behind their motorhome and heavily damaging Hamel’s ’86 Monte Carlo SS racer.

Hamel was riding in the passenger seat of the motorhome, with his parents Kurt and Cindy. They never saw the other driver. But Justin heard the impact.

“The sound of that car hitting that trailer still makes me sick just thinking about it,” Hamel said. “I knew it was bad. I was just afraid that my shot at racing in Vegas had been stolen from me.”

The car slammed into the side of the trailer, crushing it near the axles and shoving the race car sideways. The impact caved in the whole side of the trailer into the car and slapped the car over, caving in the whole right rear quarter panel, pushing the rear end over, denting the right rear quarter panel, and caving in the driver's door. The impact tore the trailer hitch assembly from beneath the motorhome and spun the trailer around in the intersection.

After the wreck, Hamel called Division 5 Nick Duty and apologized. Duty posted about the crash on Facebook.

“I told him what happened,” he recounted. “I was like, ‘I'm so sorry. I don't think the car is raceable.’ ”

Within minutes, Hamel’s phone began filling with offers from racers willing to help. Among them were Ed Van Winkle and his nephew, Jason, who loaded Ed’s Nova and drove through the night from Grand Island, Neb. Van Winkle and Hamel race against each other at their home track in Kearney, Neb., but friendship took precedence over competition.

Hamel’s own car is specially adapted with hand controls. Before the crash, the racers had talked about how easily those controls might transfer to Van Winkle’s Nova if Hamel ever needed another car. Now they put that idea to work.

The family removed the controls and other necessary equipment from Hamel’s damaged Monte Carlo, still at a friend’s home in Kingman. When the Van Winkles arrived at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Thursday morning, Hamel’s father, Kurt, joined them to fit the seat and install the throttle, brake, trans brake and line loc.

Hamel’s left hand controls the throttle and the brake, and he triggers the line loc with his left index finger. When he pushes the handle forward, it activates the brake. Pulling the throttle straight down, from 9 o'clock to 7 o'clock, works the throttle. The trans brake button is underneath his right thumb on the steering wheel.

That night, after the event’s finalist photo and dinner, Hamel tested the Nova. The controls felt familiar. He decided he could race.

The next morning, he made his first run in the borrowed car: a 9.950-second pass at 141 mph, close to the pace of his own Monte Carlo.

Father Kurt had drag-raced a ’69 Chevelle decades earlier. After Justin’s accident, he asked what they would do with the Monte Carlo they had bought in 2008 but never built. His father had an answer: they would install hand controls and go drag racing. The car, Hamel said, became part of his healing. He had been at the Mile High Nationals in Denver the day before his motocross crash. Looking back, he felt the different parts of his life had led him to the dragstrip.

He thanked his father and the family’s shop, Hamel Repair, Diesel and Performance, for the work they put into his car, and Winke’s Van’s Engine and Machine team for lending him the Nova. But the moment belonged to more than one shop or one borrowed car.

The Las Vegas wreck threatened to take his big opportunity away. Instead, it revealed how many people were ready to help him keep it.

“What tears me up the most is just how great the drag racing community is,” Hamel said. “The fact that everybody was willing to do whatever they could… makes you realize just how amazing the people we race with are.”