Full Speed Ahead

David Bailey and Ricky James are side-by-side and the wind is howling. They are on their handcycles and both of these athletes certainly understand the ups and downs of life more than most.

Bailey was the best motocross athlete in the world when he was paralyzed in 1987. On the videos of David's early days in the hospital, he makes sure to tell his fans that he will be back walking before you know it, that this is just a temporary setback. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how tough you are. Your spinal column could care less about your resume, your dedication, toughness or will. When the messages going from the brain to the legs go unanswered, Your hopes and dreams for walking, running and riding a motorcycle again must go unanswered as well.

David Bailey's career as a motocross star was over and he struggled to find his way, to create a new path that was right for him. Then one day former Olympic Trials pole-vaulter Jim Knaub entered his life - and Bailey would never be the same. Knaub was paralyzed when a driver hit him while he was on his motorcycle on the way to work. For whatever reason, Knaub, whose motorcycle had a "For Sale" sign on it, took a different route that day. "I had a feeling in my gut that something was going to happen to me that day," remembers Knaub. "I just didn't know what."

But instead of struggling with his new life, he embraced it. "I knew my life was about to change forever before I hit the ground," insists Knaub. "I was ready for it."

He became the face of wheelchair racing and pushed race directors to actually offer prize money for his efforts. He knew that to make a sport like his media friendly, there needed to be good guys and bad guys. "Someone needs to wear a black hat and someone needs to wear a white hat," he says. "And I was happy to be the bad guy."

To the outside world he was the athlete with the chip on his shoulder who somehow, some way was able to get people to ignore the chair and take notice of the athlete. When he met David Bailey he knew that he wasn't only a big motocross star; he felt Bailey could also have a huge impact. "When we went to races, everyone was screaming David's name," says Knaub. "They all knew him and came to watch David Bailey. It was great for our sport."

David Bailey wanted nothing to do with Knaub's sport, but Knaub is not someone you simply say no to and he goes away. Not likely. He pushes hard, just like he did in his chair, until he gets exactly what he wants. "My victories aren't the trophies I win," Knaub says. "It's the people who change their lives for the better, the ones who understand that life is now different, but it doesn't mean it can't be better than it was before."

What he wanted was for David Bailey to embrace the sport of wheelchair racing. "Jim got me in a racing chair for the first time and told me ‘This is going to mean more to you than motocross ever did,'" recalls Bailey. "I smiled at the guy... but there was no way."

Then Bailey the athlete re-emerged. He started watching the way the other wheelers attacked the push rims, how they were set up in their chairs, how they cornered and how aerodynamic they could get. After winning the Disney World Marathon, he set his sights on triathlon and the Ironman in Kona. He trained under the direction of former top 10 Ironman finisher Todd Jacobs. In his first two attempts in Kona, in 1998 and 1999, former Navy Seal Carlos Moleda smoked Bailey both times on his way to breaking the course record for wheelers. In 2000 they had a classic race with Bailey finally catching Moleda 22 miles into the marathon and winning the Ironman title that he had wanted so badly. Since race day turned out to be his mother's birthday, that win became one of the best presents ever. The fact that the win hadn't come in his first time out, the fact that he had to train himself into oblivion, the fact that he beat the course record holder on a really tough day all just made the win that much sweeter.

Bailey turned his mind back to motocross and a few years later was helping a young man named Ricky James become one of the best up-and-coming motocross athletes around. James signed with Honda at age 16, but was paralyzed early that same year. "I came together with another rider and he landed on my back brake pedal," he remembers. "All the momentum threw me over the bars and I went headfirst into a little embankment on the side of the track; my bike followed and squished me. My back had nowhere to go."

16 years old and paralyzed. David Bailey was his coach before the accident and stayed with him afterwards as well. "David definitely helped me right out of the hospital," James remembers, "and I actually have an uncle who is in a wheelchair who was great. I got in touch with the right people and that made it a lot easier." 

Ricky James built a motocross bike with electronic shifting that he could ride, even with no feeling south of the sternum. You can watch Ricky James on YouTube doing flips into a foam pit on his bike, and riding 120 miles of the Baja 500 through thick dust clouds on a four-person relay team. "I have Velcro straps holding me to the bike and I've got someone following me to help out when I crash," he says. "It is so much fun to be out there."

Eight months after his injury he was racing four-wheel quads and 10 months later he was back on the motocross bike. Two years after the accident he was racing Baja and then his dad, Rick, got him behind the wheel of a truck. He has been kicking butt in the West Coast Pro Truck Series where they race NASCAR-style trucks on quarter-mile and half-mile tracks. In his first four races he took one second, three firsts and he set a track record. 

James is the only guy out there using hand controls and he's actually competing on a level playing field with other drivers - who could care less that the kid is a 19-year-old paraplegic. 

To them he's just another guy to beat, and Ricky James wouldn't want it any other way.

With David Bailey as his mentor, was there ever a question of Ricky James maybe giving a triathlon a try? At the beginning of this story, David Bailey and Ricky James were out training this past spring with a brisk wind in their faces. James had heard the horror stories of the Kona Coast and wanted to know how these particular winds compared. For Bailey it was a flashback to when he was training for Kona with Todd Jacobs and he asked the same question: is this wind as hard as the winds get in Kona?

"I had to laugh," recalls Bailey. "I had asked the exact same question. And when I did, Todd said:

‘Yeah, it's about as tough as the wind in Kona... in the hotel lobby... at night....' And I told Ricky the same exact thing."

Ricky James caught the drift. Kona is no picnic. But to find out for himself he did a little bit of swimming with Bailey, and the Challenged Athletes Foundation bought him a racing chair. Then it was off to Kona for the Ford Ironman 70.3 Hawaii in late May when the winds were howling and he missed the bike cutoff time by 19 minutes. "It was tough, but even though I missed the cutoff time, I got in my racing chair and did the half marathon and finished unofficially in 7:11."

Then it was on to rainy Lubbock for the Buffalo Springs 70.3 in Texas a few weeks later. He took his swim time down from an hour to 42 minutes, made the bike cutoff time and went under seven hours.

Ricky James is a young man with a ton of potential, a need for speed and an appetite for success.

The question now isn't if he can finish Kona. 

It's how fast the kid can go.