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Moyer facing challenges heading into '14 season
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt.com managing editor
Billy Moyer doesn't remember his Charlotte wreck. (pbase.com/cyberslash)
Billy Moyer faces the challenge of helping the continued development an unproven chassis in the 2014 season. But that’s not the first challenge facing the 56-year-old Hall of Fame driver from Batesville, Ark.
Before he climbs into a Longhorn Chassis for the first time, Moyer must mend his body from his grinding crash at Charlotte as well as recover from a long-delayed hernia surgery scheduled for mid-December. | Moyer rides Longhorn
“I’ve always been a quick healer,” Moyer said in a phone interview, but the outpatient hernia surgery, along with two broken ribs and other lingering injuries from his wall-smacking accident at the World of Outlaws World Finals will test that.
Moyer hoped to get his partnership with Bobby Labonte Racing’s in-house chassis off to a quick start at Tucson (Ariz.) International Raceway’s NDRL-sanctioned Winter Extreme, but he realizes his Longhorn debut may have to wait until as late as March if he’s not ready to go. If he can’t race in Tucson, he’ll keep close tabs on his son Billy Jr.’s efforts in his new Longhorn, or might tap another driver for his own No. 21, the elder Moyer said.
“I’ve just gotta get all this crap behind me so I can get ready to go again,” said Moyer, whose unprecedented six World 100 victories are among 774 career feature wins.
Moyer has known for more than a half-dozen years about the hernia that has limited his physical fitness routine. He didn’t know he’d be ailing from the accident in the Charlotte heat race Nov. 8 that sent him to a local hospital with a mild concussion and widespread bruising.
“That deal beat me up more than people think it did out there,” Moyer said. “I’m on the mend and everything seems to be a lot better. It just took 10 or 12 days to get on the recovery side of it. That’s a bit of wakeup for my age and hitting that hard. Maybe somebody that’s 25, it wouldn’t have hurt 'em that bad. I’m going to hit the gym harder to go for next year once I get this stuff behind me.”
For now, the broken ribs on the upper left of his abdomen won’t allow him to climb into the seat of a race car, his knees “looked like they’ve been hit with a baseball bat” and he was “black and blue on my left side from my ankle to my neck.”
With no memory of the accident, Moyer has seen video and photos of him walking across the track to the ambulance in a fog. “I was a zombie,” he said.
It was safety expert and racing seat manufacturer Randy Lajoie who saw Moyer’s glassy-eyed look in the Charlotte pits, quickly recommending he get medical attention and take a trip to the hospital. That became clearer when Moyer went into his transporter to change out of his driver’s suit and someone found him trying to put his right shoe on his left foot.
“I was all screwed up,” Moyer said.
In the days after the accident, laughing or coughing or sneezing was painful because of his ribs, and sleep came fitfully. He couldn’t sleep on his side and was forced onto his back, something he’s usually avoided because of chronic back pain.
“It’s still tender, but it’s way better than it was,” said Moyer, who is optimistic he can put the health challenges behind him and get ready for chassis challenges. “I think I can get through that deal in a couple of weeks, deal with the hernia and I’ll be OK.”
