D.I. COLUMNIST
Straight Talk
By Ian Tocher
A
s most of you reading
this are aware, on April 9,
2016, I was involved in a
terrible accident at Rock-
ingham Dragway that ultimately
cost me my lower left leg, but even
more tragically took the life of Ron-
nie “The King” Davis, a great, tough
competitor and always one of my
favorite racers.
A lot has happened over the past
year as I worked first on just get-
ting better physically and now on
trying to regain as much normalcy
as possible in my life. That means
getting back out there at the races,
contributing regularly to Drag Il-
lustrated, including the resur-
rection of my Straight Talk column,
and hopefully even getting back
between the pipes ASAP as an ice
hockey goalie!
Throughout it all, though, I’ve
been genuinely overwhelmed
and enormously grateful for the
sincere kindness and generos-
ity demonstrated over
and over by so many
people toward me and
my family. Some, like
my wife, Sue, and son,
Robert, I clearly would
be lost without, and my
sisters, Heather and
Celia, along with their
husbands up in Canada, as well as
Wes Buck and all the guys at Drag
Illustrated, have been tireless in
their encouragement and support. I
also have to single out the guys on
my beer-league hockey teams, who
rescued my vehicle and brought it
home to Georgia after the accident,
and ferried Robert back and forth
between Atlanta and the University
of North Carolina Medical Center at
Chapel Hill, and later built ramps
and made repairs to our house so I
could get around more easily upon
returning home.
Special thanks also belong to the
doctors, nurses, therapists and other
specialists and staff at
UNC and throughout
the Emory hospital
system in Atlanta, who
consistently offered
great care and compas-
sion while making me
whole again. There are
so many others, too,
racers and friends who took time out
of their busy lives to stop by and visit
me in those hospitals and at home.
Then there was the GoFundMe.
com account set up by DI’s own J.T.
Hudson almost immediately after
the accident and the hundreds of
people, some whom I knew very
well and others just compassion-
ate strangers, who gave many thou-
sands of dollars that I can honestly
say allowed us to avoid a financial
disaster over the past year. After
looking over all the donations and
comments left there I really wish I
could thank each one in person, and
even though I can’t, please know you
each have my deepest appreciation
for helping me and my family in a
true time of need.
I’ve compiled as many names as
I could recall here, alphabetically
listing people and organizations that
helped me out in any extra way over
the last year or so. I know most shy
away from naming names for things
like this, fearful of leaving someone
out—and I’m afraid of that, too—but
I believe everyone here deserves a
public thank you. Inevitably I know
there will be some important names
left off the list, some I’m afraid I just
don’t know, and if that’s the case
and you see me out and about some-
where, please step up, fill me in, and
allow me the honor of thanking you
in person.
The journey continues, but you’ve
all made it so wonderfully clear that
I’m not on it alone. Please know your
selfless gestures have helped make
me a better person for the future.
Thank you.
DI DI DI
DI DI DI DI
DI DI DI
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Bowling, Chris Bowman, Dave Bowman, Kevin Boyce, Adam Braddock, Courtney
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Issue 120