The George Hammel Story

0 April 25, 2011, 8:44 a.m.

THE GEORGE HAMMEL STORY

By Mike Garrison

At the age of 5, I walked into the family room on Christmas day and found waiting for me a brand new 50cc dirtbike. I swung my leg over the bike, and never looked back. I raced motocross week in and week out, constantly working to someday be the next James Stewart or Ricky Carmichael. My entire family joined in and supported my racing for the next 13 years. In 2006, at the age of 18, I made my way to a local race which would change my life forever. I shocked myself with a first moto win, and was ready to do it again in moto 2. As the gate dropped I found myself in second, behind my longtime best friend out front. Half a lap in, I setup to make a pass for the lead over a double jump headed into a long sweeping corner. As we took off the jump, I looked over and saw that we were slightly closer than I had anticipated, and this was going to hurt! We collided and both went down. The crash would collapse both of my lungs, crack my sternum, shatter two vertebrae, and leave me paralyzed from the chest down.

Now to many people, this situation sounds absolutely awful. To me however, I could never be so thankful for the experiences, the adventures, and the people I would meet as I began my journey to someday walk again. With my 2-wheel career halted, I switched gears full-time to r/c cars. Switching gears to r/c, it was only a matter of time and I found myself working with some of the greatest people I can think of! Everyone from the crew who boom lifted me up to drive in the rain at the Worlds in 2008, to local racers who carry me up and down the stairs for me to break out three minutes into the race!

Several months back I made my way out to the 25th Annual Cactus Classic. Amongst the 400+ entries and racers, I found that I had something in common with one racer in particular. This racer is ShortCourseHobbies.com very own George Hammel. Hammel is an inspiration to the motocross community, r/c community, and spinal cord injuries around the world. We caught up with George, and he was able to give us his story!

"I have been an avid motocross rider since I was 12 years old, racing in Arizona for the early portion and traveling to California for the larger races and series to ride with the faster riders. We attended most all of the amateur nationals and did well, top 3ʼs for the most part. I turned pro at 18 and raced the west coast Supercross series in 1997, at the 1st race of the outdoor series at Glen Helen Raceway in San Bernardino, CA (May 9th, 1998) I was very badly injured, breaking my back, both my legs, both my arms, and fracturing my skull. This forced me to not able to compete in the sport I loved any longer due to the damage to my spinal cord and the paralysis in my lower extremities.

Within a month of the injury/accident I started rehab and of course a change in life, since now I was confined to a wheel chair. Along with my parents guidance we decided it best to attend college and focus on computers and technology for a career. I attended the University of Arizona and a Technical School to maximize my education. The entire time still in rehab, exercising, and making changes in life. I graduated with a degree in computer science and moved to San Diego (Carlsbad). I was able to get a job with Spy Optics as the network administrator for the US ofﬁce, they treated me fantastic, even though I was barely able to walk (now with crutches on a temporary basis). During my time at Spy I created their website(s) and that led to other companies wanting me to do that for them as well. It brought enough business my way to start my own web development agency called Ulterius Media Group. One of the clients of Ulterius was a company called Atticus Clothing (which was owned at the time by Mark and Tom from the band Blink-182), they also owned a company called Loserkids.com which sold merchandise for the music industry. They saw value in Ulterius and purchased the company and merged it with Loserkids.com. We worked on small and large projects for about 5 years with some pretty amazing clientele and people! At about the end of the 5th year when Blink-182 broke up the companies had some speed bumps and I made a choice to leave and continue with my own agency again, I formed Airbox Studios. We still work with most of the amazing clients and people along with a more diverse set of clientele from action sports to medical. We moved the ofﬁces to Tucson, AZ. and also have an online hobby shop called ShortCourseHobbies.com. Casey Peck is my partner with the hobby shop and a great friend that I grew up with since I was very young, he is also a very very fast R/C car driver. Both companies work hand in hand and support the industries as much as possible.

With the intense amount of rehab and exercise during the first 5 years I have been able to get out of the wheelchair and start walking without crutches (using leg braces and with a large limp, but excitedly walking!!!). Within the last 3 years I was also able to start riding mini bikes and then eventually now big bikes. I rode at least 1-2 times per week and tried getting back into the sport that I love and the sport that gave me the drive to accomplish all the things written here. I competed in The Extremeity Games and the X Games Super X Adaptive in 2008, with a Gold metal at Extremity and unfortunately a broken arm while running 2nd at the X Games (you can watch all the videos at georgehammel.com).

In February 2010 I crashed hard again while starting to practice for the 2010 Extremity Games and broke my back for the 3rd time. The final outcome from the doctors was that my back is no longer able to withstand the impact that motocross riders endure, so I looked to make a change and Casey Peck showed me how fun R/C cars can be. I have race locally ever since and hope to hit some of the bigger races in the future. The R/C community is amazing (much like motocross), I have met tons of amazing people and seen some great racing, especially with the Short Course Trucks!!!"

George and the ShortCourseHobbies.com crew put on a strong showing at the Cactus Classic, and off the track were some of the coolest guys I met. I look forward to racing again soon with George, Casey, and the rest of the crew!

Check out all of the latest Short Course parts, accessories, and kits at www.ShortCourseHobbies.com!

For more of George’s amazing story visit www.GeorgeHammel.com!