Darrell Gwynn was talking about his unusual journey to the Motorsports Hall of Fame, and what he’s learned, and what it all means in the bigger picture, when he interrupted the conversation.

“There’s someone who got injured just as we’re talking,” he said.

Someone gets paralyzed every 38 minutes, he knows.

“That’s just how it goes,” he said. “The clock’s always ticking. That’s just a fact.”

That ticking clock is part of Gwynn’s story. He sat atop the drag-racing world in 1990, the king of the sport — “The Kid,” as he was known in a way that resonates still — when his car veered off the track at 240 mph in an exhibition in Somerset, England, and went through a retaining wall.

He nearly died. He never stood up again. He’s spent the last 33 years in a wheelchair. He lost his left arm. He doesn’t talk much of that day, or its immediate aftermath, saying: “It’s better that way. The way I put it, I got 99 percent good memories I’d rather talk about. It’s just that one day that’s bad.”

His life changed in a manner a man who embraced speed couldn’t have imagined. He’s still a “motorhead,” he says. He can’t drive and rides in a “soccer-mom van.”

“I belong to a club that I didn’t sign up for,” Gwynn, 61, said. “Neither did anyone else who had an accident. It’s not easy, but the financial and emotional support, the friendships, they’ve been a big help.”

Six months before his accident, Gwynn became a sponsor to the fledgling Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. He put a sticker on his drag racer. Gwynn grew up in North Miami, knew people involved in the Miami Project and has become good friends with the face of the project, Marc Buoniconti.

“We were donating a lot of money, because we were winning a lot,” he said. “That was a twist of fate, looking back at it.”

If that accident defined Gwynn’s life, the resulting 33 years showed what he’s done with his life. He stayed in racing, owning a team for more than a decade with his father, Jerry, a pioneer in the sport. He started a foundation that held events for those with spinal cord injuries and donated more than 300 custom wheelchairs to those in need.

He married and that resulted in another twist of fate with The Miami Project. Research on spinal-cord injuries led to discoveries in how they could still become parents. Darrell and Lisa had the 25th baby from the Miami Project’s discovered process when Katie was born in 1998.

“Obviously, that was different from the norm, but it was a very cool and life-changing experience,” Gwynn said.

In many ways, Gwynn led the common life in balancing business and personal life all of us do. He began working for The Miami Project in 2015. He raised Katie, now 25. He and Lisa divorced a couple of years ago.

He’s gone on an had a life, a full and somewhat normal life in the big picture. In some manner, he was the Kid a lifetime ago. In other ways, it was just yesterday when he was 12 and drag-racing legend Don “Big Daddy” Garlits stayed at the Gwynn family home. He later raced against Garlits.

On Tuesday night, Garlits will introduce him in the Hall of Fame.

“I never thought in a million years I’d be getting this honor,” Gwynn said.

He’s written a four-page speech, though it sounds like it’s more a thank-you note to everyone who’s helped him. His parents, Jerry and Joan. His assistant, Julie, and good friend, Bob, and other friends …

“I want this to come out right,” he said. “I’m putting a lot of work into it.”

Gwynn also has counted down his career’s top seven racing moments over the past week on his Facebook page. No. 1 was winning the sport’s biggest event, the National Hot Rod Association’s Gatornationals in 1989 and 1990.

There’s a picture just after winning that second title he calls “The Moment.” He’s smiling in a way that shows him what all the work meant. Maybe he gets that moment again Tuesday, the one that says his long journey was much more than a few good races.