Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

I am battling cancer and lost my left leg above the knee. I am looking for ideas to rig up a hand brake or see if anyone has done that before. Any ideas please reply or email [email protected]

Seen it done in a car with a six speed manual transmission. clutch and brake were both hand controls and he had to shift. He is also competitive ! I will see if I can find a contact and post it. I am sure he has pics and ideas.

I'd look up Isaac Schreurs of Brandon, SD. He uses a hand throttle and brake in his sprint car since he's paralyzed from the chest down... and wins races while doing it.

Just me thinking--

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I'd see about mounting the master cylinder on the next to the lowest framerail, weld a spud for a bolt to the very bottom framerail, run a flat stick of aluminum to the spud, and then a rod to the cylinder.

If you needed extra power, a street rod underdash style power booster might be small enough to work with.

nevermind, these guys have you covered.

YOU GO MAN!!!!!!!!!

There was a racer from I think New York who ran the old ESS series and had hand controls. I can't remember his name right now. Hopefully someone out there has a better memory than mine.

We had a guy running in the 305's in north central Ohio that raced with an amputated leg if memory serves me right. If you post over at pitgate.com someone should be able to give you more information. I'm bad for forgetting names ect. ect... but the community is pretty tight over there and someone should be able to tell you his name and how he went about setting things up.

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I would flip my brake pedal over to the other side and use my right leg for it. It would be much easier to use a hand control throttle than engaging a master-cylinder with your hands. Even though guys have done both with hand controls I would think it would be better to have the brakes on your foot rather than a hand control if you had the option. JMO

Roger Horvath. He started out as a Northeast DIRT Modified racer before switching to Sprint Cars. Horvath was paralyzed from the waist down as a result of a non-racing accident.

Larry Woods built a car for Brad Doty with handle controls...

I was going to ask about that earlier... Did Brad ever run that thing at full speed, under race conditions? Or was it just an exhibition, parade lap kind of thing? I'm not old enough, or educated enough to remember or know.

I don't know that it really equates, but I know that back in the day, there was a motocross racer turned monster truck driver that ran a truck with a handle bar setup. and if memory serves, I've heard of the same thing being done in a sprint car. Might not be the most convenient thing in the world... just throwin' out ideas.

Brad paced the field at the royal one year in the car. I was there but I'll be damned if I can remember what year it was. He wasn't up to speed but, I'd be willing to bet he would have let'r rip if he'd had the chance.

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1998

There was a guy who raced rally trucks who paralyzed and had both the brake and throttle on the same stick. The brake worked as a lever and the throttle was a dirtbike style hand grip on top of the stick. He won at least one race doing it (I watched it on Versus).

a very good friend of mine Bill Underwood from Lodi,Oh. lost his left leg from the knee down from a sprint car accident and the battle of diabetes..with the help of a few close friends and Bill's knowledge of a mechanic his whole like they were able to make a power brake system with a hand brake as a back up. Bill was very competitive up til loosing his battle with his diabetes..I would be glad to give you some numbers for people to reach if you need information on now they built the controls...send me an email at [email protected]

I don't know if you have access to any machinery to make the components you will need but if you can work up some basic drawings of whatever design you come up with, I would be willing to machine them for you on my HAAS CNC mill, free of charge. What your going through isn't an easy deal and I like to give back to this great sport wherever I can. I hope everything comes together for you so you can get out on the track asap. Matt

"Winged or non-winged its all about 
the sprint cars for me!"
http://mattmusselldesigns.daportfolio.com

I lost my left leg above the knee 40 years ago. Being 60 now I don't think I would want to start driving sprint cars now. If I were going to try though, I would move the master cylinder to the right side. Turn it around backward so the pedal is pointing forward. That way you can use the heel for brake and toe for gas.

This way you have both hands on the wheel for better control.

When I paced the main event at Eldora Larry Wood, who built the car, used a Honda 4 wheeler thumb activated throttle cable which actually seemed to work really well with a lot of throttle control.

Larry had a lever connected to the brake master cylinder where I could reach over and push it for the brakes, which was OK for what we did, but I wouldn't want to race it that way. Isaac Schreurs races, and wins, using a hand brake set up like that though.

Roger Horvath did race up in the New York area with a hand throttle and a, from what I can remember, I motorcycle lever/brake cylinder system mounted to the steering wheel.

Now to mattcar31's question. I remember seeing a guy many years ago, I know someone out there also remembers and probably remembers his name, whose left leg was amputated above the knee and he had a stirrup that his upper thigh laid in and he could push straight down on it for the brake.

Hope that helps!

Brad Doty

Mr. Doty! Thank you very much for your reply. Im a huge fan. I looked up Isaac schreurs and the way he was doin his brake. Personally I would like to keep my left hand on the wheel for me thats my driving arm. But things are different now and I will have to adapt to whatever I can. I would like to see the motorcycle lever/brake cyclinder system if I can get it to brake hard enough. My left leg has defenatly been threw alot with years of surgery and fighting to keep it since I was 13 and I have never had full strength in that leg so I dont know that I could get full control with the stirrup style brake. I dont know that I would be able to push on it and finesse the brake without leaning into it. My crew chief is looking into it and will see what we can do for my style of driving thats what its all about really. Either way I will be in the car one way or the other. Like yourself and these other drivers with obsticals similar to mine I am gonna prove that life goes on. Your an awsome inspiration to me thank you again for your reply.

Matt Clevenger