RACER: Robin Miller's Toughest Drivers Series - Lee Kunzman

He won the first USAC midget race he ever entered, led Salem the first time he laid eyes on it and then qualified ninth in his Indy-car debut at Phoenix with no practice laps. He was as good on pavement as dirt and undaunted by the likes of Gary Bettenhausen, Larry Dickson, and Rollie Beale.

If anyone was postmarked for success in Indy car racing in the early 1970s it was Lee Kunzman. But the likable kid from Guttenburg, Iowa turned out to be the poster child for toughness in the rough and tumble world of open-wheel racing.

In 1970, he was badly burned and broken in a sprint car accident at Odessa, Mo. but made a stirring comeback one year later and won a USAC midget feature in Cincinnati despite the fact he was too weak to take his helmet off after taking the checkered flag.

He suffered a traumatic head injury in the fall of 1973 while testing an Indy car at Ontario, Calif. He was out of racing for almost two years while he learned to walk and talk again but by 1977 he was back in the starting lineup at Indy – where he finished seventh.

He won 14 sprint and 16 midget features in USAC and made four starts at Indianapolis, but Kunzman captured the racing world's heart with his grit and spirit. RACER's Robin Miller looks back at his amazing career.