Borrowing a Bit of Inspiration at Speed

2014 Canadian Formula 1600 Super Series Champion
Chase Pelletier with Caleb Smith

Cambridge, ON - September 19, 2014
Photo via Kayleigh Hilborn

Do the accomplishments of those in motorsport inspire others to reach for more and reach out to others?  It's a question very worth exploring.

Has Austin Riley inspired others to try racing as a therapy for their children dealing with Autism?  Has Race2Recovery inspired the creation of motorsport teams for wounded soldiers in other countries?  Did the "4Tommy" decal improve the lives of children dealing with cancer?

The answer is a resounding yes!

Austin Riley's story has inspired three other local families to take up kart racing to help their children with Autism.  Riley himself probably already owns a world record between his 3 Championships, his position on the Energy Corse factory team, his graduation from Skip Barber Race School, and his position as a Lotus F1 Junior Development Driver.  Other parents around the world are taking their children to kart tracks hoping that the magic that Austin has found will work for their children too.  He now has worldwide support and a huge global fan base, considering he's a 15-year-old kart racer in Ontario, Canada.

Race2Recovery has inspired a number of new race teams in several countries, including a group (JSR/Soldier On) in Canada  working to put together a road course endurance race team patterned after R2R's model that mixes motorsport experts with currently serving and retired military.  Beyond racing, members of R2R are involved in other sporting events from the Paralympics to the Invictus Games.  Many people with disabilities have been inspired by R2R's accomplishments to go out and try whatever it is they want to do from motorsport to rugby to mountain climbing.

While not as direct, the "4Tommy" campaign played a small part in the choice of the Austin Hatcher Foundation as the official charity of the now defunct American LeMans Series.  It was the influence of helping children going through cancer treatment along with other factors that brought the ALMS to the decision to choose a charity that supports children with cancer.

In the next couple of weeks, we'll be featuring a new story on the blog about 2014 Canadian Formula 1600 Super Series Champion Chase Pelletier.  We've talked a bit about Chase already, but not in great detail.  Chase has been racing his entire career with the double challenge of managing Type 1 Diabetes while also working hard to beat the competition.  One of the important aspects of his off-track life is Chase's support for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.  On September 28, 2014, Chase will be participating in 'The Run to Type None' at Professor's Lake in Brampton, Ontario.

In July at the Honda Indy Toronto, Chase met a young four year-old fellow T1 diabetic named Caleb Smith.  As a result of the connection that Chase and Caleb forged, Caleb is going to try the 5km run along with Chase on September 28th.  Chase, as well as fellow diabetic IndyCar driver Charlie Kimball, have both had a huge and inspiring impact on Caleb's attitude towards having diabetes and his adjustment to being diagnosed with diabetes at age 3.  In fact, someday Caleb wants to follow in Charlie Kimball's and Chase Pelletier's tire tracks and become a race car driver.

In the meantime, Caleb will have to settle for beating Chase on foot while raising funds for the JDRF.  However, don't take our word for it.  Here's Caleb's own diabetes story as dictated to his mother for his fundraising page for 'The Run to Type None'.

If all of these great stories aren't enough to convince you that there is Inspiration At Speed, we haven't done a good enough job of telling these amazing stories.

Help Find These Special Helmets!

Cambridge, ON - September 9, 2014
Photos via Jason Cherry & Racing With Autism

There are some posts that just make your insides turn and this is one of them, unfortunately.

Sometime in the last 24 hours, thieves broke into the race hauler for Racing With Autism and stole both of Austin Riley's helmets and the team's laptop with all their race setup and data on it.  It's a crippling blow to a young man that has struggled so hard to get to where he is.

While both the laptop and the helmets can be replaced with new ones, the memories associated with those two helmets can't be replaced, nor can the data on the laptop.

You see, Austin was wearing one of those helmets the day Brooke and I met him.  He was wearing one of those helmets when he met retired Formula One driver Rubens Barrichello.  He was wearing one of those helmets when he became the first driver with Autism to graduate from Skip Barber Race School.  Austin was wearing one of those helmets when he won one of his championships.  The top picture for this post is a special photo taken when Austin met Jason Cherry of the Pirelli World Challenge Series.  Jason supports the American Autism Society and has a brother on the Autism spectrum.

Those helmets aren't just race helmets.  They are a treasure trove of special memories for a young man that needs those memories far more than most of us do.  Those helmets are worth far more to Austin than they could ever be to the thieves that stole them.

It's a cruel and heartless thing to take away a young man's memories like this.  It's like ripping out a part of his soul.  What MUST happen here is that these helmets are found and returned to Austin Riley.

Any other outcome is completely unacceptable and completely unthinkable.

NOTE:  If you have information on these helmets, please contact Racing With Autism.

~Colene~

Awareness is the Key to Understanding

Cambridge, ON - September 6, 2014
Photo - Brooke Legacy

If anyone had told me two years ago that someone with Autism could drive a race car, I would have already been formulating the argument against it in my mind by their second sentence.  I would have argued that there's no way someone with Autism could focus enough, maintain concentration enough, have the proper fine motor skills, or have the hand/eye coordination and reaction times required to drive a race car.

I would have been completely and utterly wrong.  In fact, I would have been so wrong that looking back at how I would have reacted, I'm fine with saying I would have been bigoted and prejudiced.  All I knew about Autism was "The Rain Man" portrayed by Dustin Hoffman.  I had never met anyone with Autism, and I was completely ignorant.

However, I'm extremely happy I was wrong.  Austin Riley taught me that lesson, and he taught it to me in spades.  I met him just over a year ago, and he showed me just how ignorant I was.

The reality is that I'm not alone.  Very few people have the vaguest idea what Autism is or what someone with Autism can do.  It's those people that Austin Riley and his father Jason are looking to reach with a 2015 "Autism Awareness Tour".  By telling people about Austin, the Riley family hopes to educate people.  They couldn't have picked a better example in Austin or come up with a better idea.

As with all great ideas, it takes money to make something like this cross-country four month tour a reality.  The Riley family has come up with a way to fund the tour and they could use some help.

On September 27, 2014, the "Racing With Autism Team Karting Enduro" will take place at Goodwood Kartways near Stoufville, Ontario.  A maximum of 18 teams of four drivers per team will compete head to head in a 1 1/2 hour Enduro.  The Entry fee is $400 per team.

I don't have hope that Austin will do well in racing.  I KNOW for a fact that he will do well in racing.

I also know that if Austin can teach me how ignorant and bigoted I was just by driving around a track in a kart, then there's no way he can't teach others the same lesson and make the world a better place.

Keep doing great things, Austin.  Keep doing great things.

Austin's Story

Master of My Fate

Cambridge, ON - August 23, 2014
Photo via Jaguar LandRover

Motorsport has endured its fair share of marketing and public relations ploys over the years.  Some have been really outstanding and some have been just disastrous.  The reality is that most sponsors are looking for some sort of return on their investment in terms of advertising streams and revenue from sales.  Motorsport is a bit of a nice market advertising wise unless you know how to create a really good hook with broader appeal.  When trying to use motorsport as a marketing ploy, though, one has to be careful about the balance between crass and inspirational.

An example of a bad viral marketing strategy was a television show that tried to use the unfortunate Stewart/Ward shunt as a means of driving traffic to the show's website by circulating a picture of a NASCAR shunt with the caption "Government announces new measures to control deaths in NASCAR through regulation".  Many average people fell victim to the ploy, which had them clicking on the photo that was linked the television show website where there was no mention of anything motorsport at all.  It was a cheap and crass marketing ploy that backfired on the television show.

On the outstandingly good side of the coin, there is Jaguar LandRover.  About three years ago, the marketing department at Jaguar LandRover decided to sponsor Race2Recovery.  It was a gamble for them, because the team were complete rookies and could guarantee nothing to the car manufacturer except that they would do their best.  That gamble has paid off in spades for Jaguar LandRover with two motorsport records, international press (your truly included in the press portion of this equation), two documentary films, a book, and one of the best and most inspirational stories of the Dakar Rally-Raid two years in a row.  Jaguar LandRover couldn't have asked for a better return on investment for their dollars.  At the same time, Jaguar LandRover found value in supporting wounded soldiers and has broadened their sponsorship mandate to include the upcoming Invictus Games in the United Kingdom in a few weeks.

I've seen several promotional videos for the Invictus Games, the most notable being the one with Daniel Craig in it.  I like Daniel Craig.  I think he's a great actor.  As he recited his line from the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley, I found myself making a fervent wish that someone would make a video of Tony Harris, co-founder of Race2Recovery, reciting the same poem.  I wanted to hear a man recite the poem that I knew was in some ways epitomized by the words he was saying.

The fates granted my wish, as Jaguar LandRover has released a promotional video for the Invictus Games featuring Tony Harris, Jon Flint, Nick Black, and David Hubber reciting the poem.  While I'm not familiar with the last three men, their delivery of the poem is just as powerful and inspiring at Tony's.  Jaguar LandRover's marketing department hit the ball out of the park with this video.  It's a tasteful and inspiring marketing approach that increases my respect for Jaguar LandRover tenfold.

For me, one of the best moments of the video is the very end, when Tony Harris recites the last two lines of Invictus as he's shown walking away from his Wildcat RallyCar.  The reason?  Tony Harris lives the words he's reciting every day of his life.

"I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul."

Jaguar UK Promo for Invictus Games

The Extremes of Speed - Race2Recovery

Cheers to the Marketing Department at Jaguar LandRover!  Well done!

~Colene~