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0 Liz Power has been by her husband Will’s side for nearly two decades. When she became gravely ill this year, the Indianapolis 500 winner decided he needed to be her cheerleader.
In January, Liz ran a 41-degree fever and was rushed to hospital before undergoing spinal surgery.
She had been complaining of back pain, something she attributed at the time to carrying around their six-year-old son Beau.
Stan Sport is the only place to watch the 2023 IndyCar Series, featuring Will Power, Scott McLaughlin and Scott Dixon. All the action streaming ad free, live and on demand
However, when she could barely walk, Will decided to take action and admitted her to hospital.
A staph infection had reached her spine and emergency surgery was the only course of action.
She was idle for three months, taking a range of antibiotics daily through a peripherally inserted central catheter.
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Will pulled out of the 24 Hours of Daytona to be by Liz’s side in hospital. So severe was the situation that he nearly pulled up stumps in IndyCar too while she recovered.
As a result, she missed the IndyCar season-opener in March but returned to the track for the Indianapolis 500 in May.
Still, the three months of seeing Liz largely bedridden and unable to attend race meetings had taken its toll on Will – so much so he thought about stopping.
“It’s been a real slow process,” he said of Liz’s recovery.
“It’s a tough situation because if she’s in a situation where I’m not sure what’s going to happen with her… like I was at the point where I probably shouldn’t be racing.
“You don’t want your kid to grow up without parents. That was actually going through my mind at times.
“Things have improved significantly. Feel certainly a lot more comfortable.”
Speaking ahead of the season-finale where a year ago he was celebrating winning the IndyCar title with Liz, Will didn’t shy away from the fact that her illness had “hurt” him mentally.
To date, he hasn’t performed as well as he’d have liked in 2023 and struggled to replicate the rich vein of form he enjoyed a year earlier.
“It was a tough year,” said the Australian.
“It was a tough start for me personally actually with what was going on with my family. That kind of continued all the way – even in Road America, had a bit of an issue again.
“It certainly affects your preparation and your mindset, that it does hurt you.
“Not an excuse, but I know how tough this series is, and you can’t have any sort of issues off the track if you want to be good on the track.
“All in all, ultra competitive series, so it’s not hard to lose ground in the championship. Just takes a couple little mishaps and suddenly you’re trying to claw back.
“Yeah, definitely an off-season of reflecting on what went wrong, thinking about it, mental approaches, see what we can do coming back.”
Power sits seventh in the IndyCar Series standings with one race remaining at Laguna Seca.
Monday’s race, which takes in 95 laps, gets underway at 4:30am with coverage live, ad-free, and exclusively on Stan Sport.
