Those who have read my tales on here, know that I try to stick to a chronological format, and I knew that would be tough when it came to this part of DW 13. Please allow me to editorialize a little, something I'll readily admit I'm not comfortable doing.
On my involvement.
I certainly don't think my family or I did anything extraordinary in offering our help. I just felt honored to be in a position to do something. In 1995 I was badly burned by radiator steam at the race track. Two racers were on hand immediately to greatly reduce the damage, then other racers and friends returned my rig and car home as I was hauled off to the hospital. On my next visit to the track months later, a racer's wife returned my shirt and pants, washed and folded (yeah, I was stripped to my tighty whiteys in front of the whole track), so this felt like a chance to repay those who helped me through that ordeal.
On Steve
That first Drag Week in 2006, Steve had came up and checked our 78 Dodge 1/2 ton over during tech, and then we made one soft 13.15 during T&T, I remember telling him it was a mild big block. When we finally got to race on Wednesday, it went 12.05-110 and he spun his chair around with a big smile on his face and said, "We need to talk a little more about that engine". We broke the truck and Steve came over and asked if we needed any help. I told him yes we did, and explained that we were short some tools. He was thrilled to go get them out of his dually for us, and I was impressed that he had a whole system so he could get to everything in the truck without any outside help. At that time I thought he must've been without his legs for many years to be so well adjusted, but when I visited with his long time (since third grade) friend who picked his rig up from my house, I was shocked to learn that he had lost his legs in a series of operations over a two year period starting around '03 or 04. I also learned that injuries from his war duties had left him with a plastic elbow as well, of course, he never spoke to me of any of this, he was simply a man who decided to look past his physical limitations and allow his indomitable will to push him to accomplish the things he loved doing. He would never ask for help, and was loathe to accept it when offered with the exception of good friends. Sympathy and coddling, would be rejected openly, but respect, and genuine comradry would be seized upon and returned in kind.
On the situation Two of the first things that ran through my mind upon hearing the news, were, "this shouldn't have happened", and "how did this happen". In the time since, I have seen these sentiments repeated by many others, and even the very people who have filled in many of the blanks for me, have clearly been searching for those same answers. Sunday was very hot, and the tech line was a long drawn out process. Steve spent most of that time in his car, and drank very little. Monday was much the same story, and he finally decided he could not continue at the first checkpoint, then drove back to his motel in Bowling Green to try and recover. He refused his brother's requests to go to a hospital, and wanted to simply rest and try to make it back to Tucson and see his own doctors.
Beyond those points would be supposition on my part. I try to put myself in the position of his siblings, and I can't begin to understand their pain. I know that his sister Joyce who we were in contact with had supported his desire to do Drag Week every year, and had accompanied him in years past. His brother Ken, fighting ailments of his own, was there for him as well, but my belief is that Steve had become so adept at hiding and denying his own physical problems that no-one realized how serious it was.
