What's up guys? I can't recall if I saw it here but there's this rider that has his right leg amputated I think from the knee down riding a Busa. If you see it, please post. I just wanted to show it to my co-worker. Thanks.
Please help
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fredsimmons
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Double amputee Showers races past adversity 2003
By JEFF WOLF
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Reggie Showers smokes the tires of his Pro Stock motorcycle as he prepares for a run down the quarter-mile dragstrip.
Photos COURTESY NHRA
NHRA Pro Stock motorcycle racer Reggie Showers, a double amputee since a 1978 electrocution mishap, rides his bicycle through the pit area at a recent race.
COURTESY NHRA
Reggie Showers smokes the tires of his Pro Stock motorcycle as he prepares for a run down the quarter-mile dragstrip.
COURTESY NHRA
Racers make countless adjustments to make them go faster. Most tinker with shocks, tires and engines.
Reggie Showers changes his legs.
Riding a motorcycle without legs might seem daunting, and straddling a 350-horsepower, full-race Suzuki Hayabusa at 190 mph might be downright unimaginable.
The 39-year-old Showers, from the West Philadelphia, Pa., area, makes his living riding for the Star Racing team, which begins competition Friday in the Pro Stock Bike category of the NHRA Powerade Drag Racing Series.
A double amputee below the knees since 1978, Showers made his debut in the motorcycle series in 1995 and has raced full time in NHRA for four seasons. He's in his first season with George Bryce's team, which has won 64 titles and six championships, including the last three with rider Angelle Savoie.
The highlight of Showers' career came two months ago in Indianapolis, when he won his first NHRA title at the rain-delayed U.S. Nationals, the most prestigious race on the circuit. He had won his division's annual all-star race in Indianapolis the week before.
Though Showers has spent most of his life walking on prosthetic legs, he has never accepted racing as a gimmick.
The 6-footer stands tall among his racing peers, but he is 5 inches shorter when he attaches his racing legs, an adjustment none of his competitors can make.
"(Bryce) told me that once we started going fast or winning, someone would complain about my racing legs," Showers said.
"I say if anyone thinks we have an unfair advantage, they can climb on top of a (railroad) boxcar, touch a wire that sends 13,000 volts through their body, get their legs cut off, get some PDI Pro Series Race Legs, and they could have the same unfair advantage they think I have."
That accident is how Showers became a double amputee as a 14-year-old eighth-grader on Memorial Day 1978. He and friends often played on boxcars on a dirt lot, and when he jumped from one car to another a little higher than the others, Showers made contact with the power wires.
Only his basketball sneakers saved him, if not his legs. Still, life immediately changed for Showers, who had developed from a "fat boy" at puberty into a tall, slender star basketball player and school class president.
"Things were really starting to happen for me before the accident," he said. "Then to be cut down like that ... I had a short-lived athletic career."
That's as close to negativity as you'll hear from Showers. He vividly recalls being overweight as an adolescent and being the last kid picked for any teams, except football.
"My first 14 years I was getting conditioned on how to survive and handle that accident. Everything had prepared me for that day. I never cried about it," he said.
The month after the amputations, Showers was in a burn unit, followed by a month at a rehabilitation center in Philadelphia learning to use his prostheses. That left him barely one month to prepare for his freshman year, a time he used to re-learn how to ride a bicycle.
"Being the popular kid helped in my social rehabilitation," Showers said. "My family and friends loved me and helped me. Nobody laughed at my scars or the way I walked. I was very fortunate."
He acknowledged having had some self-confidence issues, though others never saw them.
"I projected a confidence that many with disabilities or deformities do, but I had an insecurity inside," he said. "But that changed when I started to race motorcycles."
Showers raced motorcycles illegally on the streets of Philadelphia, but it wasn't long until he switched to legitimate dragstrips.
He kept his street bike at a girlfriend's house, and while his parents thought he was heading for a second year of classes at Temple University, Showers instead spent his days working on the bike and his nights racing it.
From 1989 through 1994 he competed in the International Drag Bike Association, winning 25 titles and setting 14 records.
Showers competed in 12 NHRA events from 1995 to 1999. He moved to the circuit full time three years ago, finishing 11th in points in 2000 and seventh the past two years.
"When I started in NHRA, only a few friends at the races knew I was an amputee," Showers said. "I didn't want anybody's pity and didn't want to take the chance race officials wouldn't let me race."
Showers was the subject of a two-part feature on "NHRA Today," a weekly program on what was then The Nashville Network. In 1997 that exposure led Showers to Tracy Slemker, a prosthetist who owns Prosthetic Design of Dayton, Ohio, and began sponsoring Showers.
When Savoie and Bryce split before this season when they were unable to secure solid sponsorship funding, Slemker brought his sponsorship of Showers to Bryce's Star Racing.
Showers has since won two national titles, the all-star event and is fourth in points. It also has led to a display trailer and a tour that provides seminars on prosthetic technology at all 15 Pro Stock Bike events on the NHRA tour.
And racing has become only part of Showers' professional responsibilities.
"I'm not a saint or an angel," he said, "but there's a method to my madness. I have a certain responsibility to the public because I am in the public's eye.
"I'm always telling kids to believe in themselves and that you're only disabled if you think you are; disabilities are a state of mind."
Showers frequently speaks at schools, visits Shriners Hospitals for Children and answers e-mails he receives from around the world. But his recent success has led to an "overwhelming" number of new requests.
Nothing better exhibits Showers' inspirational role than his celebration after winning in Indianapolis.
After dedicating the victory to his team and sponsor, he removed one leg and waved it above his head to the delight of the crowd. His message: even those with seemingly insurmountable obstacles can become winners.
By JEFF WOLF
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Reggie Showers smokes the tires of his Pro Stock motorcycle as he prepares for a run down the quarter-mile dragstrip.
Photos COURTESY NHRA
NHRA Pro Stock motorcycle racer Reggie Showers, a double amputee since a 1978 electrocution mishap, rides his bicycle through the pit area at a recent race.
COURTESY NHRA
Reggie Showers smokes the tires of his Pro Stock motorcycle as he prepares for a run down the quarter-mile dragstrip.
COURTESY NHRA
Racers make countless adjustments to make them go faster. Most tinker with shocks, tires and engines.
Reggie Showers changes his legs.
Riding a motorcycle without legs might seem daunting, and straddling a 350-horsepower, full-race Suzuki Hayabusa at 190 mph might be downright unimaginable.
The 39-year-old Showers, from the West Philadelphia, Pa., area, makes his living riding for the Star Racing team, which begins competition Friday in the Pro Stock Bike category of the NHRA Powerade Drag Racing Series.
A double amputee below the knees since 1978, Showers made his debut in the motorcycle series in 1995 and has raced full time in NHRA for four seasons. He's in his first season with George Bryce's team, which has won 64 titles and six championships, including the last three with rider Angelle Savoie.
The highlight of Showers' career came two months ago in Indianapolis, when he won his first NHRA title at the rain-delayed U.S. Nationals, the most prestigious race on the circuit. He had won his division's annual all-star race in Indianapolis the week before.
Though Showers has spent most of his life walking on prosthetic legs, he has never accepted racing as a gimmick.
The 6-footer stands tall among his racing peers, but he is 5 inches shorter when he attaches his racing legs, an adjustment none of his competitors can make.
"(Bryce) told me that once we started going fast or winning, someone would complain about my racing legs," Showers said.
"I say if anyone thinks we have an unfair advantage, they can climb on top of a (railroad) boxcar, touch a wire that sends 13,000 volts through their body, get their legs cut off, get some PDI Pro Series Race Legs, and they could have the same unfair advantage they think I have."
That accident is how Showers became a double amputee as a 14-year-old eighth-grader on Memorial Day 1978. He and friends often played on boxcars on a dirt lot, and when he jumped from one car to another a little higher than the others, Showers made contact with the power wires.
Only his basketball sneakers saved him, if not his legs. Still, life immediately changed for Showers, who had developed from a "fat boy" at puberty into a tall, slender star basketball player and school class president.
"Things were really starting to happen for me before the accident," he said. "Then to be cut down like that ... I had a short-lived athletic career."
That's as close to negativity as you'll hear from Showers. He vividly recalls being overweight as an adolescent and being the last kid picked for any teams, except football.
"My first 14 years I was getting conditioned on how to survive and handle that accident. Everything had prepared me for that day. I never cried about it," he said.
The month after the amputations, Showers was in a burn unit, followed by a month at a rehabilitation center in Philadelphia learning to use his prostheses. That left him barely one month to prepare for his freshman year, a time he used to re-learn how to ride a bicycle.
"Being the popular kid helped in my social rehabilitation," Showers said. "My family and friends loved me and helped me. Nobody laughed at my scars or the way I walked. I was very fortunate."
He acknowledged having had some self-confidence issues, though others never saw them.
"I projected a confidence that many with disabilities or deformities do, but I had an insecurity inside," he said. "But that changed when I started to race motorcycles."
Showers raced motorcycles illegally on the streets of Philadelphia, but it wasn't long until he switched to legitimate dragstrips.
He kept his street bike at a girlfriend's house, and while his parents thought he was heading for a second year of classes at Temple University, Showers instead spent his days working on the bike and his nights racing it.
From 1989 through 1994 he competed in the International Drag Bike Association, winning 25 titles and setting 14 records.
Showers competed in 12 NHRA events from 1995 to 1999. He moved to the circuit full time three years ago, finishing 11th in points in 2000 and seventh the past two years.
"When I started in NHRA, only a few friends at the races knew I was an amputee," Showers said. "I didn't want anybody's pity and didn't want to take the chance race officials wouldn't let me race."
Showers was the subject of a two-part feature on "NHRA Today," a weekly program on what was then The Nashville Network. In 1997 that exposure led Showers to Tracy Slemker, a prosthetist who owns Prosthetic Design of Dayton, Ohio, and began sponsoring Showers.
When Savoie and Bryce split before this season when they were unable to secure solid sponsorship funding, Slemker brought his sponsorship of Showers to Bryce's Star Racing.
Showers has since won two national titles, the all-star event and is fourth in points. It also has led to a display trailer and a tour that provides seminars on prosthetic technology at all 15 Pro Stock Bike events on the NHRA tour.
And racing has become only part of Showers' professional responsibilities.
"I'm not a saint or an angel," he said, "but there's a method to my madness. I have a certain responsibility to the public because I am in the public's eye.
"I'm always telling kids to believe in themselves and that you're only disabled if you think you are; disabilities are a state of mind."
Showers frequently speaks at schools, visits Shriners Hospitals for Children and answers e-mails he receives from around the world. But his recent success has led to an "overwhelming" number of new requests.
Nothing better exhibits Showers' inspirational role than his celebration after winning in Indianapolis.
After dedicating the victory to his team and sponsor, he removed one leg and waved it above his head to the delight of the crowd. His message: even those with seemingly insurmountable obstacles can become winners.
fredsimmons
Registered
I saw this awhile back. Not sure if it is the one you want. Fred
Thanks, proud dad. That's the one.
that is bad azz
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