Disabled racer has forged ahead despite loss of arm

Friday, Dec. 12, 2008 | midnight

Courtesy photo

John Van Hoove jumps his dirt motorcycle during a race.

John Van Hoove was never one to let the loss of his arm affect his life.

The “disability” has helped the Summerlin resident become a successful salesman. Clients remember him, he said.

And having one arm hasn’t stopped Van Hoove from competing in the Motorcycle Racing Association of Nevada desert series for the past three decades.

“I have basically taken my handicap and used it to my advantage,” he said. “It’s strange to say, but it hasn’t been that tough.”

Hoove, 51, was two weeks away from starting his senior year at Clark in 1974 when an accident with a machine at his family’s dry cleaning business forced doctors to amputate his right arm a few inches above his elbow.

He had to give up football and writing with his dominant hand, but the worst of it came when doctors told him he had to give up his favorite hobby, riding his dirt bike.

“I had worked all summer to pay for that motorcycle and I said it’s my bike, he can’t tell me what to do with it,” Van Hoove said. “Within eight months I had won my first race as a amputee.”

In a sport that places emphasis on upper-body strength, racing without a limb was a major challenge. Nevertheless, Van Hoove refused to give up the sport and started by duct taping his artificial limb to the handle bar.

“It hurt when I crashed because I always stuck to the handle bars,” he said.

Improving his prostheses to make it easier to ride has been a constant obsession throughout the years.

Van Hoove designed drastic changes himself and commissioned a local race car manufacturer to make with a quick release to make it easier to get off the motorcycle.

“I’m definitely limited in strength,” he said. “I can’t hold on to the motorcycle like the others, but sometimes it takes more heart than muscle.”

Even if his handicap still affects his riding, Van Hoove remains competitive in the association’s veterans division.

He has also raced the Las Vegas to Reno 800 and various Best of The Desert series races throughout the years.

Friend and dirt bike aficionado Daryl Folks said amputees are rare in the sport.

“It’s unbelievable how he can keep going the way he does,” Folks said. “He has taken everything on and it never slows him down. If I lost one of my arms, I would lose two-thirds of my ability to ride. That’s a testament to how good of a rider he is.”

Van Hoove has become a popular rider in the association and competes in its races every month with his wife and daughter in his pit crew.

Many of the other racers do not know him by his real name, only as “Bandit,” the moniker inscribed on the back of his race jacket.

“Everyone is involved,” he said. “Moms are making food for everybody, Dads are with the pit crew, your girlfriend is there for moral support. It’s really much more family-oriented than people realize.”

Sean Ammerman can be reached at 990-2661 or sean.ammerman@hbcpub.com.