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BY JIM BELSHAW
Retirement didn’t sit well with Kevin Draper. He already
had gotten more than a taste of enforced inactivity in his
long fight with esophageal cancer, an ailment he traces back
to his Navy days working with Agent Orange and asbestos off
the Vietnamese coast. When he finally was forced to sell
his Waco turbocharger business, Draper found himself at home
only a day or so before he knew doing nothing all day just
wasn’t going to work. Life was too slow. When he was
finally able to hold a wrench in his hand again, the antidote
to life in the slow lane seemed obvious. Speed.
“It should go around 250 miles an hour, maybe 300,” he
said.
“It” is a 600-horsepower, open-wheel, blown-fuel
Lakester that he intends to drive across the Bonneville Salt
Flats in search of a new land speed record for the vehicle’s
class. The vehicle looks like a rocket on wheels. Technical
specifications and photos of the car and crew may be found
on the Web at www.americaneagleracingteam.com
“I’ve
driven a couple of cars and motorcycles at those high speeds,” Draper
said. “I’ve
done quite a bit at Bonneville for many years.”
He ran
his business, Majestic Turbochargers, for 24 years in Waco,
Texas, before being diagnosed with the cancer that brought
dramatic change to his life. He had experienced no symptoms
and discovered the possibility of cancer only because he
came across an old shipmate while traveling the country to
take part in drag races.
“He said there was something
about [health issues] on the ship’s web site,” Draper
said. “I
didn’t even know my ship had a web site. When I got
back to town, I went to a doctor, and three days later I
heard the worst words I’ve ever heard. They said I
tested positive for cancer. I let it go too long. I didn’t
even know I was sick.”
After the surgery that removed
a substantial part of a lung and part of his esophagus, Draper
began the long rehabilitation process that continues today.
He said he received nourishment through a feeding tube for
about 25 weeks and that doctors gave him a 20 percent chance
of survival. He is cancer-free now but has been told there’s
a significant chance of the disease reoccurring.
“So
I sold my business here in Waco and up in Dallas and retired,” he
said. “The VA gave me 100 percent
disability, but they kind of made it not Agent Orange-related,
if you know what I mean. But that’s okay. I’m
not complaining. I just want other people who don’t
feel well to have it checked out. The only reason I found
out about it was that 16 or 17 guys from my ship died of
cancer. Back in those days, we didn’t realize the dangers
of asbestos and some of the chemicals we were using. I’m
not complaining, just living with the cards I was dealt and
trying to survive.”
It took eight months of hospitalization
and rehab to recover from the surgery. By then, the forced
retirement struck Draper as particularly frustrating.
“When
you’re home alone, it’s just you
and Perry Mason, you know?” he said. “One day
I had worked for 24 years, and the next day I could sleep
in and do anything I wanted. I didn’t have a job to
go to. But I missed the people. I missed the shop and talking
to people.”
Then one day an old friend, Benny Bridger,
owner of Benny’s
Hog Shed, a Harley-Davidson shop in Waco, made a suggestion: “Let’s
build this thing and run it on August 11.”
Draper said, “Do
you think we can?”
Bridger replied, “We can if
we work together.”
So began the American Eagle Racing
Team.
Bridger would be the crew chief, supervising the building
of the vehicle and the other myriad details involved in such
a venture. They have been working on the car about four years.
“When
you work on a vehicle that’s this complicated,
you have to have one person who’s in charge and who
has a sense of what it’s going to look like at the
very end,” Draper said.
Involved in racing for nearly
a quarter of a century, Draper soon started going to Benny’s
Hog Shed every morning after his hour of cancer surgery rehab. “At
first, I’d go over there and do maybe four bolts a
day,” he
said. “Then I started doing more. Benny did me a big
favor by letting me work down there every day.”
He feels
comfortable in the car. The surgeons told him he’d
never be in the same physical shape he was before the surgery,
and he says they were right. He tires easily now. But he’s
confident he can control the car and feels well protected
inside of it.
“I picked this vehicle because I can control
it,” he
said. “You sit inside. You’re protected. I put
a high booster motor in this thing, and it doesn’t
weigh very much.” He says the race team is “psyched” for
Bonneville and that they’ve had the engine up and running
and everything looks good.
“My job is to drive it to
the best of my ability,” Draper
said. “I’m not scared of it.” When asked
if there might be room on the car for a VVA sticker, he said, “Hell,
yes!”
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