Quadriplegic race team owner moves ahead with faith, family

Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2005 | 10:20 a.m.

In January 2000, promising IndyCar driver Sam Schmidt slammed into a wall during a testing session at Orlando, Fla., damaging his spinal cord and losing all feeling from his chest down.

It ended Schmidt's driving career and nearly ended his life. But it sparked a determination to keep racing and to conquer the misfortune that has him fettered to a wheelchair.

"I don't know whether it's the nature of an athlete in general, or just me, but now that I've met a number of people in the past five years with different levels of disabilities, it's all about your attitude," he said.

"You have the option of just staying home and being a couch potato or trying to attack the future."

In motorsports, Schmidt, 41, has attacked the Menard's Infiniti Pro Series with a team featuring trio of rookie drivers who head into their final race this weekend at California Speedway in Fontana out of title contention, but in the hunt to finish in the top three in season points.

Travis Gregg, 27, who does victory back flips (three this year) like NASCAR's Carl Edwards, is third with 426 points behind Wade Cunningham at 467 and within reach of second-place driver Jeff Simmons (434).

Gregg's teammates at Sam Schmidt Motorsports, 24-year-old Jamie Camara is fifth at 383 and 19-year-old Chris Festa is sixth with 355 points.

"It's not easy for him to come to races and it takes him a lot longer and it's hard for him," Gregg said. "But he has a lot of experience as a driver and he can relay that."

Away from the track, Schmidt founded the Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation to help find a way to overcome or cure spinal cord injuries. At the urging of his wife, Sheila, Schmidt formed the charitable organization just 14 months after the 2000 accident.

His motorized wheelchair does double duty in the pits on race weekends and in the halls of Congress when he is pitching bills that favor stem cell research.

Stem cells are created just after conception and go on to form the body's tissues and cells. Researchers hope to use them as replacements for diseased and injured body parts.

Critics - including President Bush - oppose the research because days-old embryos are destroyed, usually after being donated by fertility clinics.

Schmidt is heartened by a report that Harvard scientists have discovered a way to fuse adult skin cells with embryonic stem cells, raising the possibility that in the future all-purpose stem cells could be created without harming human embryos.

"There appears to be at least a hope with this Harvard study - sort of a hybrid would be less controversial," he said. "You can be pro-life and support embryonic stem cell research.

"We're quickly falling behind as a nation with other nations investing hundreds of millions of dollars in this type of research. It's just a shame, because we've got a lot of really smart people who want to work on it, but just right now don't have the opportunity."

Schmidt concedes paraplegics lost a powerful voice with the death of "Superman" star Christopher Reeve.

"There's just nobody out there to take Chris' place," he said. "He was definitely the face of spinal cord injuries. Unfortunately, it's going to take 10 of us. That's some pretty big shoes to fill."

"With a bill in front of the U.S. Senate right now that would greatly increase federal funding of this research, we could take this particular discovery, as well as others over the past few years, and cure someone like myself," he said.

Schmidt noted an experiment at the University of California, Irvine, that let crippled mice regain some use of their back feet with stem cell transplants.

"To me, it's boring as hell to read all these journals and read all that literature, but I believe ... it's going to be whatever it takes for me to recover," he said.

Even without the regenerative power of stem cells, Schmidt is feeling some improvement.

During an interview in his car hauler, he moved his head, neck and shoulders - the parts of his body he uses to command his wheelchair.

"It's weird with spinal cord injury. Some stuff can come back pretty rapidly, some comes back slowly. Some stuff can't come back at all," he said.

"I definitely feel like I've got some sensation in my back and I've got more upper body control than I had six or nine months ago, but it's such a slow process at this point. It can be frustrating."

Sheila Schmidt said her husband follows his kids in his wheelchair when they ride their bikes around their neighborhood in Henderson, Nev.

It's time like those that get him thinking the most about what he would like to be doing, she said.

"Otherwise, he's so busy with every other aspect of his life that it just keeps him going. To look at him, to talk to him, he's still the same person," she said. "Sometimes I forget and think that he's going to go get the phone when it rings."

Schmidt credits his faith and his family and his hope in research for his strength.

"I want to be a part of that research and that development and do whatever I can to help find a cure," he said.

"I'd love more than anything to get my arms back and be able to pick my kids up."

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On the Net: http://www.samschmidt.org