One year after a crash in his Indy car left him paralyzed, Henderson racer Sam Schmidt is …

By Brian Hilderbrand

Friday, Jan. 5, 2001 | 10:31 a.m.

The impressive bronze trophy signifying the only pole position Sam Schmidt won in his three-year Indy Racing League career is the first item visitors notice when they walk into the foyer of his upscale Green Valley home.

In addition to serving as a piece of art, the stunning replica of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway has proven to be something of a motivational tool for the 36-year-old Schmidt, who was paralyzed from the chest down during a testing accident in Orlando, Fla., a year ago this Saturday.

Instead of relegating his racing memorabilia to a storage closet, reminders of the sport are scattered throughout Schmidt's home in the form of trophies, artwork, photographs and magazines.

Even his candy-apple red motorized wheelchair bears racing-related decals and the number "99" that adorned the car he drove to victory in the Vegas.com 500 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in September 1999.

In the 12 months since his life was turned upside down when his car spun and backed into the Turn 2 wall at Walt Disney World Speedway, Schmidt credits his family, friends, fans and racing for motivating him to fight through two surgeries and four to six hours of rehabilitative therapy, six days a week.

"It's a lot harder work than driving a race car," Schmidt said of his exhaustive rehab program.

Having the love and support of his family, including wife Sheila, 3-year-old daughter Savannah and 18-month-old son Spencer, helped Schmidt get through his lengthy hospital and rehabilitation stays.

"Spencer was six months old and Savannah was two and a half (at the time of the accident) and every morning they would come running in and jump on the bed and it was just unconditional love," Schmidt said. "It didn't make any difference to them that I was hurt; I was still their dad. That was a pretty big motivating factor for me."

Schmidt also relied on the experience he gained growing up with a paralyzed parent; his father, Marv, was partially paralyzed in an off-road racing accident when Schmidt was 10.

"My dad was paralyzed racing 25 years ago," Schmidt said. "Going through all of that growing up, it never affected me as a kid looking at my dad; I never thought he was handicapped. I saw how he worked through it and adapted and went on with life so I think, inherently, I just knew that's what we would have to do.

"I can't say that I've never thought 'Why me?' or 'What's the purpose behind this?' or questioned why it happened -- you'd be stupid if you didn't -- but at the same time, I haven't had a whole lot of time to think about that, either."

Since the accident, Schmidt has regained some movement in his shoulders but continues to have no feeling or movement below his mid-chest as the result of a pair of fractured vertebra high in his spinal cord. But the lack of a rapid recovery hasn't dampened Schmidt's optimism.

"It doesn't seem to be enough to keep me satisfied but the biggest accomplishment has just been my health," he said. "Typically, with the level of the injury and the severity of the injury, somebody in my situation would have been back in the hospital at least two times in the first year for some type of pressure sore or some type of internal failure or malfunction.

"That's the biggest accomplishment, just staying in really good shape and feeling really good and not getting sick. I've got more movement in my shoulders and more strength in my upper body than I had but something real measurable like being able to move my hands or my fingers or my toes or something -- what I'm looking for as far as progress -- hasn't happened yet."

Because Schmidt's spinal cord was not severed -- which would have been the worst-case scenario -- his doctors have not ruled out a partial or complete recovery, but have told him it could take up to three or four years from the time of the accident.

"The good news is that anything can still happen on a big scale with me -- (and) walking is not out of the question," he said. "The problem is that any or none of the above can take place up to three or four years after the accident. I can go on for two years and not wiggle a finger and then all of a sudden messages start firing (between the brain and my extremities)."

Although Schmidt said he has no memory of the accident, which was caused when his car bottomed out on the race track and lost traction, it didn't take him long afterward to start thinking about returning to racing.

"I think back about it now and I remember the thoughts I had in ICU in Orlando were totally unrealistic," he said. "I don't know whether it was the sedation or what, but I was thinking that it wasn't that severe and here it is January and I could still possibly make the Indy 500 (in May).

"I think because of the medicine they were giving me, there was no opportunity for anybody to sit down and look me in the eye and say, 'Listen, this is what has happened to you.' It really wasn't until I got to St. Louis and I was three or four weeks into it that I started to understand that this was a pretty bad deal."

In the six months since Schmidt returned to his Green Valley home, he has formed the Sam Schmidt Foundation (www.samschmidt.org) to raise money for spinal cord research and to help those with spinal cord injuries in Southern Nevada. He also is looking into getting back into racing as a team owner -- perhaps as early as this year's Indianapolis 500 in May.

"You asked about what drives me, what keeps me motivated (and) I think that racing is a big part of it, too," he said. "It was my dream to get to the level that I was at when I got hurt. We didn't win the Indy 500, which was a goal, but we did win a race, we won a pole ... we did a lot of things that a lot of guys haven't done.

"I still haven't won the Indy 500 and we might have to take a chance at doing it as a team owner. I spent the last couple of months thinking what could I do that will still motivate me from a business standpoint and still allow me the time to do my rehab."

Schmidt said he has a simple reply to those who might have a difficult time understanding how he can return to the sport that left him, at least temporarily, confined to a wheelchair.

"I don't have any regrets about racing because I think this injury would be very tough for me to handle mentally if I had dove into my pool and had the same injury -- I would be really depressed," he said.

"I would have a hard time keeping my head up if this would have been a backyard accident or, worse yet, I got hit by a drunk driver. The fact is, I was living my dream and because of that, I don't have any regrets related to racing."