IndyCar's Charlie Kimball: 'There's no gas in the gas tank'
The thirst was unbearable. Seemingly, unquenchable.
Charlie Kimball was downing 12 bottles of water a night and, still, he was parched.
A nagging rash had spread on his arm. The doctor gave him a cream to clear up the outbreak. Then, he put Kimball on the scales.
The number was alarming.
Kimball had dropped 25 pounds — in five days. Twenty-five pounds the already svelte Kimball didn't have to lose.
"Being 22 meant I was 10 feet tall and bulletproof, right?" Kimball recalls thinking.
He wasn't bulletproof. This up-and-coming race car driver got the diagnosis: Type 1 diabetes. His body wasn't producing enough insulin, or in some cases, any insulin at all.
"The best analogy, being a car guy, with Type 1?" said Kimball, who drives for Chip Ganassi Racing, "There's no gas in the gas tank."
Then more car analogies.
Instead of having an automatic transmission pancreas like the rest of the world does, Kimball has a manual transmission. He has to manage his pancreas with insulin and a strict diet.
Everything about diabetes now makes sense to Kimball, 30, eight years later. But he had plenty of questions the day of that diagnosis. He had been racing in Europe with dreams of the U.S.
Would he ever be able to race again? Would his aspirations be shattered by a disease he knew virtually nothing about?
If history was his guide, things didn't look good.
* * *
There had never been a diabetic driver to race in the Indianapolis 500, at least legally. None that had "come out" with a diagnosis and then been allowed to start the iconic race.
Before Kimball came along, diabetics were banned, said Donald Davidson, historian at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Whizzing 500 miles around a track caused worry that a driver might go into diabetic shock and crash, injuring himself and causing disaster to others.
One of the most notorious stories of the Indy 500 and diabetes happened in 1933. Howdy Wilcox II was a diabetic driver who tried to keep it quiet.
You could hide those kinds of things in those days," said Davidson. "I don't know how to say it delicately except the medic setup at the track (then) was not quite the setup it is today. Drivers cheated the eye test and found ways around it."
Wilcox had driven in 1932 and managed to hide his diabetes. But in 1933, a couple of days before his second Indy 500, Wilcox collapsed in a garage where racers were gathered drinking beer.
"His friends knew what was up and they tried to revive him with candy," Davidson said. But the incident got back to the medic, who ruled Wilcox was banned from the race.
The problem was that Wilcox was one of the most popular drivers among the racers, so they rallied, signing a petition. If Wilcox wasn't allowed to start that race, then neither would any of them.
IMS owner Eddie Rickenbacker wasn't about to let that happen.
"He came striding in to the drivers and did a George Patton look and said, 'We are going to have a race or there will be consequences,'
What exactly those consequences would be, the drivers didn't want to risk. The race happened, and Wilcox's car started with a different driver.
* * *
Decades passed. Still no diabetic drivers — to the knowledge of the track — were racing.
Then Kimball came forward — boldly. He wasn't going to hide this. Diabetes wasn't going to be a stigma. He was going to make diabetes and racing mesh.
He landed a primary sponsor in Novo Nordisk, a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Denmark specializing in diabetes care, and raced two years in the Indy Lights series.
Then he moved on to the IndyCar Series. As all drivers do, Kimball went through an intense medical screening, with doctors aware that he was diabetic. He passed all the tests and proved to doctors that he had a health management system — and a racing system — that worked.
In 2011, Kimball became the first driver to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 with Type 1 diabetes, finishing 13th in a field of 33.
"It wasn't that the rules were changed for Kimball," said Doug Boles, president of IMS, "as much as a comfort level from the doctors that he was doing all the right things to race."
Kimball's dad came up with a diabetic hydration system. Two valves are attached to Kimball's belt, one with water and the other with orange juice. Should Kimball start feeling the sensation that comes with low blood sugar, he can flip a switch to the valve with juice, bring his glucose back up and keep driving.
"The thing with a race is, I can't call time out. I can't check my blood sugar between innings. I can't get a snack or insulin at halftime," Kimball said. "I've got to make sure from green flag to checkered flag, I'm ready to go."
Holding onto 600 horses without power steering is physical, Kimball said.
"I'm very conscious of my blood sugar going low during the race," he said. "Now, knock on wood, I've never needed the orange juice during a race to keep going."
* * *
The most popular driver in IndyCar Kimball is not.
"I'm not Tony Kanaan. I'm not Dario Franchitti," he said. "But if you look at merchandise sales, I do a lot better than a fan vote would show."
That's because all around the tracks that Kimball races are his fans — people with diabetes. They are decked out in No. 83. His hats, his shirts.
Parents will walk up to him, with a frightened child who has just been diagnosed with diabetes.
"Charlie will come up and give the kid a hug and just talk to him," said Ambre Brown Morley, director of product communications at Novo Nordisk. "That is so much inspiration in what can be a dark and scary time because your world changes. You have to deal with these things that you didn't have to do the day before and it just hits you like a ton of bricks."
Novo Nordisk, a 92-year-old company, has seen only benefits in sponsoring Kimball, not just in the U.S., but globally, Morley said.
"We're not in it because we like racing," she said. "We are in it because Charlie is raising awareness."
When that kid walks up to Kimball, he has a favorite line.
"The first thing I say is, 'Hey, welcome to the cool kids club,'
Of course, Kimball has his own secret perspective on the disease he was diagnosed with nearly eight years ago.
"Don't get me wrong. Would I give it back if I could? Absolutely," he said. "There is no day I wouldn't say, 'Here. take this thing back.'
But to be able to show people living with diabetes that life can go on and dreams can be achieved, Kimball will take that challenge.
"You can live your dreams," he said. "I'm proof. There's no place I'd rather be than the racetrack."
Follow Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow.