Joe Gouger Jr. was at Jellystone Park in Portage on a Friday, two days after his high school graduation. It was six weeks after he had slammed his motorcycle into a car at 140 mph, cracking his skull open, then leaving the hospital in two days and attending his prom two weeks later. His dad had seen plenty of accidents before, and understood that sometimes a body can look fine on the outside but have some problems on the inside. Kind of like a car. His son didn't know that yet.

He was dancing on this Friday at Jellystone, riding his motorcycle, thinking he was indestructible, not resting the body that had cracked open its skull less than 50 days before.

"I was going to give a girl a ride on my bike, and I said hold on, I'll dive in the pool and then go," Gouger said. "You know, I wanted to impress the girl, be cool. When I dove in, it wasn't the bottom. The pressure of the water broke my neck.

"I was really warm and weak. I thought I was swimming my butt off and my arms and legs were barely moving. My buddy pulled me out or I would have drowned. I felt like there was a Mac truck on me." The motorcycle wreck had taken its toll. Gouger said anything, hitting a pothole, could have done it.

He had just wanted to be like Dad.

The garage behind his dad's house in Porter is simple, brick and painted white. Inside at his work bench, 28-year-old Joe Gouger Jr. is as dirty as any good racer should be. His hands are smothered in the same oil that dots his jeans and wheelchair.

He spends his days working at Cams 4X4 Service in Chesterton, building cylinder heads, earning the money he needs to keep his racing going.

He is a quadriplegic. His legs don't move and neither do his fingers. His arms are fine, and really, they are all he needs. At least they are all he needs to go 140 mph. "I had a lot of doubts from a lot of people," Gouger said. "You can't do this because you ain't got this and got that, and another thing, no one's ever done it. Now I was really in no-man's land."

But Gouger put his palms on the gray treads of his wheelchair wheels and rolled to familiarity. No quadriplegic had ever raced in the International Hot Rod Association before. But when a wild, fun-loving teenager with racing fame at his fingertips finds those fingers unable to move... racing kept Joe Gouger Jr. going. He went through three months of rehab in the hospital. He relearned life like a kid, how to take care of himself, comb his hair, even lift his arms. He dealt with the depression, blaming his parents for what had happened. He endured the struggles with his catheter that made him not want to go out in public. Then he turned back to what he knew, trying to be like Dad.

Joe Gouger wanted nothing to do with his son's decision. The man who made racing his life and had shown it to his son paid no attention this time around. "I can't say I was happy about it, but I wasn't going to stop him," Gouger Sr. said. "But I thought this was kind of crazy being handicapped as he was. I made it clear he was going to do it himself, and he did it himself." Joe Gouger Jr. knows his dad just wanted him to rest, make sure the body that had taken so much trauma wouldn't take anymore. But he couldn't rest, so he got a car from Red Sullivan, a owner who had worked for years with his dad.

In place of Gouger's dad stepped Andy Smith, a fellow Portage grad who had known the Gouger racing reputation - but Smith didn't hook up with Joe until after his accident. "He's my arms and my legs," Gouger said. If I didn't have a friend like him, I'd be still be sitting in the garage figuring out how I could do this." "I'm more or less the muscle," said Smith, also 28. "I do the things he can't do." But when Smith starts talking about why he comes straight from work to the garage every day, it's because of his love for the cars, the sound of all that horsepower, the respect he has for Gouger and his knowledge. And it's not that he takes his best friend's situation for granted. He's climbed in his friend's spare wheelchair and gone to the mall with him, to see the ignorance and rudeness Gouger deals with every day. He has also seen the way that Gouger deals with obstacles that he constantly faces. "Not only does he not have his legs to get up and walk, but he has to use two hands to write his name, to just scribble something, to hold a tool, to hold a screwdriver or turn a ratchet," Smith said. "It's just like a little kid fumbling around a lot of the time, but he overcomes it and just keeps on going." Their friendship is easiest to see when it's time for Gouger to get behind the wheel. As it's happened a thousand times, Gouger throws his arms around Smith's neck, as Smith hugs him around the middle. Smith carries Gouger to the car, putting him in the seat where he does his best work, shoving the useless legs under the wheel, as Gouger patiently waits.

Joe Gouger Jr. just wants to blend in. Norv Nevinger hopes he rubs off. "I think he's got more heart than 10 racers put together," said Nevinger, the owner of U.S. 41 dragstrip in Morocco and the man who signed Gouger's IHRA license. "A few years ago when I started watching him," Nevinger said, "I was a little apprehensive because of liability. But after watching him race, he's as good as any of them. "If all the racers had an attitude like Gouger, there would probably be races all over the place." Gouger has been racing for four years now, and has more than 100 trips down the drag strip. He does it all with his arms, his hand controls the result of years of tinkering and perfecting, a process that's still going on. "Nobody had ever done this," Gouger said, "so somebody walking didn't know what muscles I have and what muscles I don't." He can't drive a car down the street for a loaf of bread because he let his permit run out and hasn't renewed it yet. But he is racing. Gouger isn't ripping up the circuit. But he's at the point where having legs and fingers that don't work is the least of his worries. Finding the time and money to compete with the big boys is a much larger obstacle. And that's the way it should be. "My only handicap I have is not enough experience and not being a real good driver," Gouger said. "But I am learning and getting better. "When I go to a track, it's Joe Gouger in this lane and John Doe in the next. I don't advertise it. I don't want to have to rely on that. "I don't want them to say, 'Look at that crippled kid run.' "I want them to say, 'Boy that guy can race.' " The Gougers are looking into buying a car for Joe to run, getting back to the point they were, back to the deposit on the car that Gouger's dad had to get back. "I never figured he'd do it," said the older Gouger. "But he did. I'm very proud of him." It's been more than 11 years now. Gouger lives with his wife only a few blocks from Jellystone Park. He's running at the Mopar Nationals in Indianapolis this weekend.

Joe Gouger Jr. has it in his blood. He was born to race. Just like Dad.