After Brittany Whitener was the lone survivor of a small plane crash in December 2018 that left her with a broken neck, partial paralysis and the loss of three dear friends and colleagues, she’s got a long list of firsts.

The first toe wiggle.

The first time standing up on her own.

The first time pumping her own gas.

And the first time steadying herself in victory lane, clutching husband Junior Whitener after a Late Model victory at North Georgia Speedway in Chatsworth.

In her quest to return to a life of normalcy, rejoining Junior at the racetrack was high on the list. After all, dirt racing is intertwined in the love story of the Morganton, Ga., couple who even on their 2013 wedding day had the rig loaded up and planned to head to the racetrack (a race rainout let the reception roll on).

That May 2019 victory at North Georgia stands among the most memorable for the Whiteners, who divide life from before the plane crash and after the plane crash.

“As long as I'm holding onto something, I can stand a little bit. So I remember he was still in the (race) car and I came up,” said Brittany, who rode a four-wheeler to North Georgia’s victory lane for that victory six years ago. “When I got to the car, I was hitting the decking with my hand. I was smiling. And then when he got out, I hugged him and gave him a kiss and one of our good friends, they took a picture of it.

“And that's probably one of my favorite pictures.”

Junior Whitener file

Age: 40 (birthday May 30)

Hometown: Morganton, Ga.

Wife: Brittany Whitener

Occupation: Diesel mechanic

Chassis/engine: CVR/Hendren

Sponsors: Covet Hair Crafters, Monty’s Auto Service, Shorty’s Shocks, Hampton Well Drilling, Weeks Tire, North Georgia Sign & Apparel

Crew members: Brittany Whitener (wife), Dennis Whitener (father) and Anthony Warren

And there are lots of photographs of Junior and Brittany in victory lane, including a dozen or so over the last two seasons with him driving his black-and-orange No. 1 CVR Race Car to victories at North Georgia, Tri-County Racetrack in Brasstown, N.C., and Sugar Creek Raceway in Blue Ridge, Ga., not far from the family’s home.

“We waited to get our motor fresh and it took a little bit longer than what we was expecting, so we got a late start,” 40-year-old Junior said, but he’s been clicking off victories since.

Racing has been a lifelong pursuit for the diesel mechanic. “That’s all we know,” he said. He first started going the racetrack as a boy, joining his racing cousins Trig and Sam Parris to help them in the pits.

“I wasn’t event old enough to get in the pits and they would have to sneak me in,” Junior recalls, “so that's how long ago that's been.”

Soon enough Junior began competing in go-karts, began racing full-size cars by 18 and for the last 15 years he’s been driving a variety of Late Model-style cars, sometimes scoring double-digit victory seasons. His winningest season came with 12 checkered flags in the Late Model Sportsman division and now he’s a frequent winner in the 604 Crate Late Model class.

Since meeting Junior as a teenager 20 years ago, 35-year-old Brittany has been with him for virtually every race since. She’d long attended the race to help with the racing of her father, brothers and cousins (including Late Model standout Russell Thomas, who is honored annually at Sugar Creek Raceway with a memorial race).

“That's actually where we met was at Sugar Creek because him and my brother become really good friends,” Brittany said. “So my older brother started bringing the cute racer home — and that's how we met and everything. I mean, I probably like racing more than he does.”

For many years at the racetrack, “it was just me and him” with Brittany serving as crew chief and Junior doing the driving.

“He would go out to hot lap/qualify, and when he'd come in, I knew what he was gonna change,” Brittany said. “I had everything set out for him, get the car jacked up, change what he needed to, what he told me.”

All that changed with a fateful evening plane flight with friends to view Christmas lights on Dec. 19, 2018. The pilot and two of three passengers were killed when the four-passenger Piper PA-28-181 crashed into trees just shy of the Blairsville, Ga., airport’s runway. Brittany remembers screaming for help amid the wreckage as rescuers combed the woods.

She was airlifted to Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, Ga., with a broken neck, back and a piece of broken vertebrae pinching her spinal cord, paralyzing her from the waist down. A week later she was transferred to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, which specializes in spinal cord injuries, spending three months in rehabilitation.

A rare journey away from her recovery came late in January when she was able to join Junior at a postseason racing banquet to celebrate a championship at Blue Ridge Motorsports Park (a previous name of the Sugar Creek track in Blue Ridge, Ga.).

With Junior at her side, Brittany’s arduous recovery continued throughout the winter, and he considered whether he’d continue racing.

“He had done already said that if I couldn't get to the races and go to the races, he's gonna quit,” Brittany recalls. “And I said that's not an option. I said, ‘Well we'll go back racing one way or the other.’ ”

With support from family, friends and the racing community, including Chip Vineyard of CVR Race Cars, Junior indeed returned to the track. And five months after the place crash, they were again in victory lane sharing a checkered flag and a touching kiss at North Georgia Speedway.

“It was just winning after everything had been taken away,” Brittany said.

"Just everything went like it was supposed to,” Junior said.

Everyone at the track recognized what the Whiteners had been through, and that night’s runner-up Jason Deal, a longtime competitor, didn’t mind watching his buddy win.

“Jason said that was the best second-place finish he ever got,” Junior said.

While Brittany is still Junior’s biggest fan and helps out as much as possible, her mobility prevents her from serving as his sole crew chief these days. Junior’s father Dennis Whitener and crew member Anthony Warren assist with the car, but Brittany’s Vita Monster all-terrain mobility scooter allows her to navigate pit areas.

“A lot of time people wait their entire lives to meet their favorite driver and I married mine,” Brittany said. “But he is my biggest supporter like the back of his racing suit says ‘her fight is my fight’ and I say ‘his race win is my race win.’ ”

The former nurse still works at the same practice for doctors Raymond and Lee Tidman as a certified medical assistant doing desk work and has continued to improve her mobility, often leaning on Junior who, in a Facebook post, she praised as "my rock, my shield, my crutch, my nurse, my doctor, my lover, my soulmate, my husband … my everything.”

“I've got actually really good movement in my legs and I can even leg press 300 pounds, but it's just the trouble of my nerves running from the spinal cord down, trying to get them to move correctly,” Brittany said. "That's one thing that the doctors will actually tell you they don't know how you're gonna do because every spinal cord injury is different. I actually surprised them on how my feeling and some of my movement come back before I left the Shepherd Center. But when you ask the doctor, what do you think, will I get better? That's one thing they'll actually say, well, ‘I don't know how you'll do.’ ”

Junior is forever at her side as they go to the racetrack, where “she gets more excited than I do,” he said. In discussing their racing, Junior’s description of competing sounds very much like what Brittany has gone through with her recovery.

"I think just working hard and keeping our head up really,” he said. “Yeah, there's been several times you get disgusted and wanna quit, but we keep on digging.”