RON M. PRACHT was six weeks into his rookie year as a police officer in St. Peters, Miss., when, on the drive home from work on Jan. 16, 1998, he was in a car accident that sent him careening through the roof of his convertible, breaking his neck and leaving him paralyzed.

“When I first got hurt, I would circle my neighborhood [in a wheelchair] to keep in shape,” says Pracht. Recently, Pracht had the opportunity to circle more than the neighborhood. In June, he joined drag racing star Darrell Gwynn at Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Ill., to experience the world of 300-mile-per-hour racing.

“I got to wheel with Darrell right down to where the dragsters take off,” says Pracht. “I had rubber from head to foot, all over me. Those cars make a gunshot sound like nothing else.”

Pracht got to meet Gwynn as part of a new program that provides power wheelchairs to people with spinal cord injuries and financial need. The program, inspired by Gwynn, is a collaboration of Gwynn/Steinbrenner Racing, Sunrise Medical, the New York Yankees Steinbrenner family, and the Miami Project, an organization working to cure paralysis.

Four Sunrise Medical Quickie power wheelchairs have been provided to recipients so far this year, including Pracht and Amanda Steiner, 16, who says she didn't get to meet Gwynn when she received her chair in July, but looks forward to meeting him next year to thank him.

Gwynn, whom Myria Crawford, mobility marketing manager for Longmont, Colo.-based Sunrise Medical, calls “the sweetheart” of the drag racing industry, was one of the sport's most promising drivers until injuries from an accident during an exhibition race in 1990 ended his career in the driver's seat. Since then, Gwynn has been building a championship drag racing team in Davie, Fla. And now, he's working with the wheelchair giveaway program.

“We're trying to improve the quality of life for people who may not have funding or be able to afford that kind of a chair,” says Gwynn.

The chairs, which Gwynn predicts will become collectors' items, feature a custom paint job with the signature Yankees pin-stripe motif. And they should, he suggests, come with an advertising tag line: “Zero to 10 miles per hour in so many seconds.”

The wheelchair giveaway project continues to gain momentum and recognition since its initiation last year. It's a “fan-friendly” initiative, according to Crawford who says that the National Hot Rod Association and NASCAR have expressed interest in similar projects. “It's nice,” says Crawford, “to be reminded why we're all in this industry.”