Paralympics medalist Amy Purdy to drive Daytona 500 pace car
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) Paralympics bronze medalist Amy Purdy will drive the honorary pace car for Sunday's Daytona 500.
Purdy will drive the new Toyota Camry that was redesigned for 2015. She won her medal in snowboarding in 2014 at the Sochi Paralympics.
Purdy took up snowboarding at 15, contracted bacterial meningitis four years later and had her legs amputated just below the knee. The Las Vegas native is a three-time World Cup Para-Snowboard winner, founded the non-profit Adaptive Action Sports organization and reached the finals of ''Dancing with the Stars'' in 2014.
She appeared in a Toyota television commercial during the 2015 Super Bowl that featured Purdy snowboarding and dancing to a voiceover of Muhammad Ali's ''How Great I Am'' speech.
The Toyota Camry also paced the Daytona 500 in 2012 and 2015.
