'Better than I was'

     That was Paul Gibbs' assessment of his condition Monday after last week's worksite accident that has put his 2014 racing season on hold.
    As you may already know, Paul suffered a broken back last week when a ladder slid out from under him while he was working on a house. As bad as it was, it could have been much, much worse.
    I talked to him yesterday, after he had been released Friday from a Chattanooga hospital, where he had been taken after the accident last Wednesday. Paul said he dropped about 10 feet to the ground, landing on his feet, which resulted in a compression fracture of his spine.
      The pain, of course, was excruciating, but Paul said doctors at the Fannin County hospital were really alarmed by bone fragments they feared could move into and damage his spinal cord. So he was taken to the trauma center of Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga. After a couple of days of observation, doctors there determined that the fragments were moving away from the spine, thus averting the need for surgery.
     Paul is back home in Mineral Bluff with a back brace that he will have to wear for six to eight weeks. In subsequent rechecks, doctors expect to see the fragments become encased in scar tissue -- sort of a natural protective response by the body -- which will neutralize them. Paul was also fortunate that no discs were dislodged; time and rest will let them heal.
    All this occurred less than three weeks from the start of the 2014 racing season and the launch of the  Scenic City Thunder pro-mod series at Brainerd Optimist Drag Strip in Chattanooga, a no-screw-blowers competition Paul has created. That inaugural race is April 25, and Paul said he plans to be there with the Cuda Beast, to welcome fans and racers, do an invocation and maybe a burnout. If all goes well with the doctors, Paul said he hopes to be back on the track for the series' second race, on May 24.
    Details are still being hashed out for the first race. One big sponsor has suddenly gone incommunicado, so the structure of the race payout is not yet finalized.
    "It's a real big disappointment," Paul said of his setback on the cusp of a new racing season, one that carries extra anticipation at being able to race at his home track and pride in a fast, fairer series he has developed. A race preview and coverage of the first event will be here, and I hope fans and racers turn out in big numbers for a real grass-roots, local racer-focused event.