Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

---,-----,---,-----,-----,-,-------,--,---- NASCAR ride to rCharity '.:I • • OSlO · W eeS 0raise moo (Left) NASCAR drivers go twowheeled to raise money for charity. Here the group crosses the Arizona desert near Phoen ix, where $20,000 was raised at auction. . (Below) Stock-car driver Kyle Petty and his wife Patti , organizers of the event, ride In Southern California. (Bottom) The group stops to visit the Hoover Dam on their 3300mile Journey across the country. .T By AI Pearce 38 he idea was plan ted last Decem ber , short ly after seve ral Harl eyDavidson owne rs from Phoe nix rod e into th e Arizo na d esert on their . bikes to greet NASCAR racers Kyle Petty and Ha rry Gant as they carne in from North Carolina for a Winst on Cup race. Petty didn't think much of it at the time except to mention to his wife, Patti, how enthusiastic the local riders were as they cruised into town with two famous stock car racers and some of their bu dd ies. The enthusiasm was so great, in fact, that it sp urred the develop ment of the Coo rs Ligh t / Kyle Petty Cha rity Rid e Acr oss Am eric a. Seven months la ter , durin g an open-weekend brea k in th e NASCAR Wins ton Cup schedule, it was a reality. Pe tty and Ga n t aga in r od e ' in to Phoenix with some of their buddies during th e May 8-15 eve nt, bu t this time they were in the early stages of an eightstate, eight-day, 3300-mile cross-country trek with several d ozen othe r rid er s, wi t h th e goal of ra is in g up w ard o f $300,000 for various local and national charities. The rid e began at the head qu arters of the San Fran cisco '4gers in San ta Clara, California , a nd end ed in a s ho pping center par king lot in Cha rlotte, North Ca rolina, not far from the C harlotte Motor Speed way, wit h overn ight stops in N ewport Bea ch , Ca lifo rn ia, Las Vegas, Ph oen ix, Od essa and Dall as in Texas, and then Memphis and Knoxville in Tennessee. There were brief en-route stops for sigh t-seeing at such landmarks as the H o o ver Dam, and Pho e n ix where $20,000 was raised in an auctio n as well as a stop in Fontana, California, to visi t th e site of Roger Penske's proposed 2-mil e spee dway . Lat er in th e rid e the gro up would stop in EI Paso and For t Wo rth, and then visit Graceland and Opryland , Before even half of the 3300-mile journey had been completed, most of the riders had already vowed to participate again next year. "This thing started ou t as just another ride," forme r stock car racer / motorsports broad caster Dick Brooks said in Las Vegas, "bu t it beca me so me thi ng m ore tha n th at somew here bet w een Santa Clara and Los Angeles. I was cold an d sore and already tired when I realized it was going to be m o r e of an adventu re and a cha llenge than a ride. That's w hen I decided to go the who le wa y because, by God, I've never backed down from a challenge yet . I wasn't abo ut to let it beat me down." The Pett ys organize d and promoted the cross-county ride as the year's major fund-raising project of the Winston Cup Racing Wives Auxiliary. As president of the orga nization (and a serious Ha rley r id er in h er 'o w n r ig h t ) it was Patt i Petty's responsib ility to hel p replenish the coffers of the tax-exempt, North Carolina-based charity organization. Late last year, she began considering a cross-country motorcycle ride with pa rticipa n ts makin g per-day or per-leg tax-exempt donations to charity. Along the way, there would be auctio ns of racing souvenirs a nd m em orabili a, a nd public autograph sessions to call attention to the charity aspect of the ride. "I realized that if tho se riders from Phoenix we re that excited to ride wit h two race d rivers, then maybe they'd contribute to charity to ride even farther with even more drivers," she said on the eve of the ride. "It sort of went from there. Kyle and I and plenty o f vol unteers started putting it together just after the racing season ended in November. "It wasn 't hard finding people willing to make the ride or companies willing to help suppo rt it. It's good that racing ca n do so mething like this for national charities. We' ve alwa ys taken care of our own, bu t it's important that we 'reach ou t to other people, too. That's why we se t out to help charit ies tha t were both local and nati onal in scope," said Mrs. Peitj. . Kyle Petty annou nced the inau gural ride the morning of tr e March 26 stock car race at Darlington , South Carolina. At th e, time, a half-d ozen member s of ine did part of the trip, as did team owners Robert Yates, Bill Dav is, Buddy Parrott a nd Butch Mock, and NASCAR official Mike Helton . In addition to individual donations, a number o f corporations kicked in : Ma yflower Van Lin es, Ray-Ban Sunglasses, Coors Light, Harley-Davidson of Daytona Beach, the MBNA bank card, Factory Stores of America, Hyatt Hotels, Delco, Manhein Auctions and Pontiac. All told, several hundred riders pa rticipa ted at one time or ano ther, but less than three do zen made the full distance. Day Eight was from Knoxville to near Charlotte, wh ere Richard Petty joined his son for the final few miles in the sideca r of Kyle' s Harley. As the su rvivors n ea red Charlotte, "gate-crash ers" appeared from rest areas and on-ramps. Even though only three dozen riders had made the full ride, al most a hundred Harleys, BMWs, Hondas and Yamahas wer e along for the final 40 miles. t he close-kni t NASCAR fam il y a n d ano ther dozen riders from the Carolinas already had committed to make the full distance. Each of the "core riders" who sig ned up for the fu ll ri de d onated $5000 to charity. Moto rsports-related riders w ho d id the full distance were drivers Kyle Petty, Steve Grissom, Jack Baldwin, former drivers Harry Gant and Dick Brooks, and tearn-owner Gary Bechtel. Drivers Todd Bodine, Michael Waltrip and Geoff Bod- "We were blessed in plenty of ways ," Pe tty said d u ring the post-ride party ne ar Charlotte. "We didn' t lose a ny body, we had near-perfect weather the whole way, no thing too seriously bad happened . Except for one team owner with a Ma y 15 ob lig a tio n in Dover, Delaware, everyon e who mad e it to Odessa mad e it the rest of the way and everybody had a good lime . But the best part is that we raised a ton of money for charity." ('X

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