By J.J. Huggins
Staff Writer
June 16, 2008 03:41am

NORTH ANDOVER -  Drivers sped around the parking lot at 1600 Osgood St. in a race car yesterday. That alone was a rare sight.

But there was more to it.

The people who took turns trying the car were in wheelchairs and could not use their feet to step on the gas or brake pedals, so the car was designed for them to operate with their hands.

"For me, this is like a dream to be able to do this," said Peabody resident Tom Muxie, 46, who was in a motorcycle accident in 1986.

For Plymouth, N.H., resident Brian Hanaford, 46, the day represented the payoff of six years of work. Hanaford is president of a company called Accessible Racing and he raised money, networked, and labored to give people with disabilities the chance to feel the stock car's power.

"This is creating an opportunity where there wasn't any," he said.

Hanaford was paralyzed temporarily after a car accident. He's no longer paralyzed, but he's now fighting liver cancer. Hanaford is the son of race car driver Harold "Hard Luck" Hanaford. He got the idea for the accessible racing program after seeing the "ecstasy" that wheelchair-bound Franconia, N.H., resident Cameron Shaw-Doran felt after riding in a race car as a passenger six years ago.

Hanaford set out to develop a program where people with disabilities didn't have to be passengers, but instead could be drivers. He found Peter Ruprecht, who runs a New Jersey-based company called Drive Master that makes vehicles accessible, and Ruprecht and his staff tricked out a race car so people with disabilities can get in and drive.

About a dozen people in wheelchairs from around the country showed up to try the car.

Kimberley Barreda, 42, of Montana said she hopes the program will show parents of children with disabilities that the disabilities don't have to prevent people from doing spectacular things.

"The list of what he can't do is way shorter than the list of what he can do," she said.

Hanaford brought the program to North Andover because he coordinated with Skid School, which shows teenagers how to avoid accidents. Skid School runs classes in the parking lot on a regular basis.

Skid School instructors showed the drivers how to do things like properly slam on the brakes and slalom in Volvo sedans first, then the drivers graduated to the race car.

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Photos

Madonna Long of Pennsylvania, who is a T-4 paraplegic, gets into a race car with help from Doug Hurst, a former NASCAR driver, to drive the modified car for people with disabilities around the track at the Skid School Driver Training track in the parking lot of Osgood Landing.