A Premier Wheelchair Racer and Motivator

He challenged fellow paraplegics: 'Why walk when you can fly?'

- CHRIS KORNELIS

A FEW WEEKS AFTER he lost the use of his legs in a construction accident in 1985, Bruce Cornell was recovering in a rehab hospital where he heard a lot about the things he was no longer going to be able to do. Among them: no more driving his truck-he would need a van with a lift.

One day he saw an open-top Jeep pull into the hospital parking lot. The driver picked up a pair of wheels and a frame from inside it and quickly assembled a wheelchair before climbing in. He then pulled another wheelchair out of the back, pushed it into the hospital and introduced himself to Cornell. His name was Jim Knaub, one of the top wheelchair racers in the country.

His message was different.

"Don't let someone tell you what you can't do," he told Cornell, who went on to race against Knaub and kept driving his truck. "I'm going to tell you what you can do."