SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Lucas Grounds grew up racing dirt bikes.
“I got my first dirt bike for my third birthday, so I’ve been racing forever,” he said.
If it has wheels, Lucas loves it. That’s why, one day in December 2020, he wanted to take a ride around the neighborhood on his motorcycle.
“I wasn’t even on my dirt bike,” Lucas said. “I was on this fun, play bike and we were maybe two miles from the house whenever it happened.”
Lucas crashed on a covered bridge and ended up breaking his back, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
“Just a freak accident, and I guess whenever I was on the bridge, I kind of knew,” he said.
Lucas spent the next three months at Riley Hospital, and through it all, he never lost his love for racing. He can’t ride dirt bikes anymore, so he’s transitioned to micro sprints.
On Wednesday, through Ed Carpenter’s partnership with Riley, Lucas got to visit the track as the team’s special guest. He got a replica race suit and learned from the boss himself.
“It’s definitely a cool feeling whenever you can come and talk to somebody and then he’ll go and show you his car. That, in my opinion, is pretty top secret, so I feel pretty good about that,” said Lucas.
“Yeah, he feels like it’s top secret, but he’s part of the team,” said Carpenter. "He’s got an Ed Carpenter Racing fire suit on now, so he’s part of the squad. He’s with us. He’s with us from here on out."
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