Few (if any?) sports give people with disabilities the opportunity to compete with the rest of the world. Yes, we’ve seen skiers, marathoners, basketball players, and a myriad others. But unfortunately for these athletes they are held to a small group that they can compete against. And in our world of arrive-and-drive track days and racing schools the overwhelming majority is standard pedal cars.
The Just Hands Racing Foundation was developed to give anyone who uses hand controls to drive (usually people in wheelchairs) the opportunity to get on to a track with an instructor!
Joining us tonight is Torsten Gross one of the founders of the Just Hands Racing Foundation who is a C6 Quadriplegic along with GTM’er Matteo Fontana, a C6/C7 Quadriplegic whom many of you have seen at the track racing his hand-controlled Audi TT 3.2 Quattro, and well as special guest Tim Horrell GT4 BMW drivers from Fast Track Racing part of the SRO GT America Series to discuss the world of racing from their unique seating positions.
In our discussion with Torsten, Tim and Matteo, we cover topics like:
- Let’s talk about each of your accidents, and how it changed your lives.
- While these accidents changed your lives, it didn’t stop any of you from pursuing speed and physical activities. What kinds of hobbies have you both been able to maintain over the years?
- What drove you to motorsports? What was your path like?
- Let’s talk about the different kinds of hand controls and vehicle setups and the lack of standardization and all the modifications to consider (locking down legs, fire suppression, entry/exit, seats)
- Motorsports with hand controls, the challenges (passing signals)
- The Just Hands Racing Foundation, what is it about, services it provides, who qualifies to drive. How have drivers reacted to the experience?
- What does Just Hands Foundation look like in 1-5 years?
- How can we help? – Are there ways that the able bodied community can work with, contribute, share in the JHR experience?
- and much, much more!
It’s very important for us to remember Motorsports makes everyone equal, no matter what appendages you use to drive! So if you or someone in your life is disabled, driving with hand controls and would love nothing more than to get on track; please be sure to reach out to the Just Hands Racing Foundation at www.justhandsfoundation.org or follow them on instagram @justhandsracing – You can follow Tim’s progress as part of Fast Track Racing via the SRO motorsports website www.gtamerica.us. And for GTM’ers you get to hang with Matteo at many upcoming events, and maybe we’ll see him at a JHR event in the near future.
**We want to thank both Matteo and Tim for coming on the show and sharing their experiences from behind the wheel with us!
