Purple Onion Healey

[HealeyRick]

Probably one of the coolest Healey pictures from the Swingin' '60s was this one:

Sadly, the driver, Jerry Walsh, suffers from ALS with an unoptimistic prognosis: https://jacksonville.com/news/2017-02-21/veteran-race-car-driver-life-now-race-finish

 

[Lin]

Rick,
'sounds like a sad ending to an otherwise full and happy life. I have had that photo in my Healey collection for a long time - one of my favorites.
Lin

 

[Randy Forbes]

I still want to slap that broad for standing on the rear deck though...

Jim Werner had posted the story to FB, and I read it yesterday. I've known two (2) people with ALS, the first was a mid-20s Healey owner that I built an engine for when I worked at Ray Caivano's Austin-Healey West shop in San Francisco. He lifted up his shirt, and you could see all his muscles tugging away at themselves. His speech was just becoming affected. He came in once more to buy a carpet set, and that was the last time we saw him.

My father-in-law, paralyzed from the waist down following a flu shot, developed symptoms of ALS, but is was mrsa that did him in.