When Ray Paprota was in rehab in 1984 after sustaining a spinal cord injury (SCI) in a car accident, he was approached by a group of hardcore athletes recruiting for wheelchair sports. Despite his athletic background, Ray wasn't interested.

"I remember thinking at the time that I would never hang out with them, because I was going to walk again.  I had that whole denial thing going on," Ray said.

Excelling in Wheelchair Sports
But the athletes wouldn't take no for an answer.  They eventually persuaded Ray to come out to a wheelchair basketball practice, and soon he excelled at the sport. He credits his immersion in wheelchair athletics to introducing him to a culture of activeness that motivated him for years to come.

In addition to playing professional wheelchair basketball, Ray also competed in powerlifting and wheelchair tennis.  In 1993, he moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where he and a fraternity of wheelchair athletes took advantage of a new world-class facility to polish their skills for the 1996 Paralympic Games.

According to Ray, they trained nonstop. "We were so hard-headed that when we were done training, we'd come home, take showers, and then go back out and hit balls until the sun went down."

Getting into Auto Racing
However, weeks before the Paralympic basketball team was to be selected, Ray tore his rotator cuff and couldn't compete.  With his athletic career on hold, he began to hang out with a group of friends who were heavily involved in auto racing.  Ray had always had a passion for the sport, and now that he couldn't participate in athletics, he was in need of another medium to channel his competitive spirit.

After working in car maintenance and mechanics, Ray got behind the wheel. He and his crew designed a pair of hand controls that allowed him to shift and press the gas without using his legs, and soon Ray became a successful driver on the Legends Series. 

His driving caught the attention of former Winston Cup Champion Bobby Allison and NASCAR crew chief George White. Then longtime NASCAR racer Danny Bagwell offered to lend Ray adaptive equipment and support, enabling him to compete in the Goody's Dash Series.

First Paraplegic in NASCAR
On Oct. 25, 2002, at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Ray became the first paraplegic to compete in a NASCAR Touring Series event.  He went on to race close to the full season in 2003.  In 2004, thanks to a last-minute sponsorship by the home accessibility company FastTracks, Ray became the first and only physically challenged driver to qualify for and compete at the Daytona International Super Speedway.

"For a guy who's always been a race fan, that's Mecca, that's the place you dream to race," he said about Daytona.

Working with Children with Disabilities
But for all his accomplishments in athletics and auto sports, it's his work with children with disabilities that Ray is most proud of.

In 1997, Ray founded Little Slicks, "a hands-on program committed to teaching physically challenged children about the tools, teamwork, and technology that is auto racing."  The program started by teaching kids the basics of auto mechanics, but soon the participants wanted to get behind the wheel.

"Before you know it, we had a racetrack set up in the back of the shop and kids were competing against each other in go-carts and it was just a really dynamic and fun thing to do," he says.

Giving Back to the Disability Community
In contributing to the lives of these children, Ray Paprota is giving back to the disability community that gave so much to him.  He paints the culture of auto racing as a fraternal brotherhood, where he and his teammates work long hours for little pay, but revel in the camaraderie that accompanies their work.  But the biggest reward for Ray is the potential for his work with children with disabilities to provide the same inspiration that a group of wheelchair basketball players did for him close to 25 years ago.

"I know there's going to be a kid with a physical disability that is someday  going to be a big-time racecar driver, and I'm just jonesed that I'll have opened doors for him, and that I'll be a piece of that," he says.