When he grew up, Lazar was a burly Teamster truck driver, working in the movie and television industry. Even today he looks like he could bench-press a Volkswagen. But seven years ago it all came to a stop when he broke his back in a motorcycle crash.

A person in that situation could be forgiven for a few moments hesitation about life. Not Lazar.

“When I was in rehab at the hospital they took me to an abilities expo,” he said. “There happened to be two go karts there with hand controls and I was like, ‘Hey when can I drive that?”

It took a whole year to do it but he finally got a chance to drive one.

“A week later I bought my own,” he said. “I’ve been racing since.”

In 2006 while racing with TRI-C Karters Lazar won third place overall for the season. The next year he won the TAG class championship.

It turns out Eric Lazar hadn’t changed, just a few things about his body had.

He wanted to share that triumph by getting others in his situation to do the same, to realize that many of the limitations they might place on themselves could be imaginary.

He started a 501©(3) charity called karting2live--www.karting2live.com. The idea is to get other paraplegics and quadriplegics behind the wheel of a kart with hand controls and find out not only how much control they can have but how much fun it is. As witnessed by Lazar’s championship, anything is possible with just a few modifications to the throttle and brakes.

On the day we visited karting2live at CalSpeed Karting at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., there was an enthusiastic band of newly minted go-kart racers.

“This is my first time on a kart since I was about nine years old,” former Navy SEAL Al Kovach said.

Kovach was always competitive, competing in swimming and water polo at Indiana University followed by triathlons after college. He was injured 19 years ago and has been confined to a wheelchair since.