HOT CORNER

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What: “Darrell Gwynn: At Full Throttle.”

Author: Erik Arneson.

Publisher: David Bull Publishing.

Price: $24.95.

The story of Darrell Gwynn is one of a child prodigy who was near the pinnacle of his drag-racing career at 29 when he became paralyzed from the neck down after an ill-advised demonstration run in England in 1990.

Erik Arneson, with enough of Gwynn’s input to make it read like an autobiography, tells the tale of “the Kid’s” first venture into high-speed racing at age 7 and his chase of the top-fuel dragster championship. But the real story is of the love, courage and dedication, not only by Gwynn, but by his family, friends and especially his wife, Lisa.

Of interest to anyone with a disability -- or without -- is how Gwynn and his family survived what he calls “the 35 days of hell” after the accident in which he suffered a broken neck and the loss of his lower left arm and retained only minimal use of his right arm.

This gut-wrenching episode is trumped by his continuing love affair with drag racing, and how he and his wife dealt with his becoming a team owner. Two years after the accident, he and Lisa, an Orange Bowl queen, were married and they had a daughter, Katie, born from a frozen embryo through the Miami Project.

As the book jacket says, “If you don’t drop a tear or two as you read his story, you don’t have any heart.”

-- Shav Glick