Eerie Connection Binds Paralyzed Drag Racer Darrell Gwynn to His Calling

• Darrell Gwynn wants to be remembered as the winner of 18 NHRA Top Fuel races and 15 as a team owner

• He said he’s humbled that “the little kid” who used to peek at the drag races through a hole in the fence and dreamed of racing against his heroes one day would see those same legends of the sport vote him into the Hall of Fame

• “I’m a racer at heart,” Gwynn, 61, says.

During one of The Citadel’s college football games in 1985, player Marc Buoniconti suffered a paralyzing spinal-cord injury that left him unable to move a muscle below his neck.

Marc's father, Nick Buoniconti, a Miami Dolphins and NFL Hall of Fame linebacker, jumped into action and established the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and the Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis fundraising auxiliary.

And that tugged at NHRA Top Fuel drag racer Darrell Gwynn’s heart, with not only empathy for a fellow Miami-area athlete but simply for a fellow human forced into an unimaginable struggle he didn’t invite. So Gwynn displayed the Miami Project’s wheelchair logo on his dragster, and soon his sponsor, Coors, became involved.

“We had a big press conference in Miami, had a lot of the big-wigs down from Coors and made a big announcement that we were going to start donating money to the Miami Project,” Gwynn said. “And man, we were winning races and writing checks. And April 15th, 1990, changed all that.”

That was the day Gwynn’s promising career in drag racing’s headliner class was crushed—and Gwynn himself nearly along with it. In an exhibition race at England’s Santa Pod Raceway, Gwynn’s dragster crashed violently. As a result, Gwynn was paralyzed from the chest down, and doctors were unable to save the lower extension of his left arm. He said he regards it as “just kind of a wild twist of fate.”

Like Marc Buoniconti, who’s now in his 50s, Gwynn, 61, has long been inactive from the sport he loves. But his work with his own foundation and its Wheelchair Donation Program and Education and Prevention Program has eased the daily fight for hundreds of those with spinal-cord injuries.

In 2002, he established the Darrell Gwynn Foundation, which provides support for those with paralysis and works to prevent spinal cord injuries. In 2014, he folded his efforts into the Miami Project as the Darrell Gwynn Quality of Life Chapter of the Buoniconti Fund. His annual fan-engaging “Walk for Those Who Can’t” during the upcoming NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville, Fla., and the “Hot Rods and Reels” Fishing Tournament during NASCAR’s Daytona Speedweek support much-needed research and his donation of customized and motorized wheelchairs to children.

All that is generous and inspirational. But that isn’t what defines him. It’s what he has conquered every day for the past 33 years. “I didn't sign up for this club. I'm a racer at heart. I'm still a racer,” Gwynn said.

His peers in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America recognized that. They remembered his 18 Top Fuel victories that followed his 10 in the sportsman-level Top Alcohol Dragster class, as well as his 15 trophies as a team owner for drivers Mike Brotherton, Andrew Cowin, Mike Dunn, Frank Hawley, and Cory McClenathan.