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Welcome to the Women's Motorsports Network podcast, the show that puts the spotlight on the incredible women who fuel the world of motorsports, from drivers to crew members, engineers to fans and everyone in between.
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We're here to celebrate the trailblazers, dreamers and doers shaping the sport we love.
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Each episode we share inspiring stories of females of all ages, from every corner of the Motorsports universe past, present and future.
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It's a journey through the seasons of life filled with heartfelt moments, laughter and a whole lot of horsepower.
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So, whether you're a lifelong fan, a racer yourself or simply curious about the extraordinary women behind the wheel, settle in, relax and enjoy a fun and uplifting ride with us.
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This is the Women's Motorsports Network podcast, connecting and celebrating women in motorsports, one story at a time.
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Hello everyone, this is Melinda Russell with the Women's Motorsports Network podcast, and my guest today is Kelly Anderson, and Kelly looks all pretty and tan because she lives in California, and I'm all white and pale because I live in Michigan, and until today, we've hardly had any nice warm weather.
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So, kelly, I'm jealous of your tan, but I'm glad we're finally going to have some summer here in California.
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We we deserve some summer here, finally.
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So I'm finally going to have some summer here in Calgary.
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We deserve some summer here, finally.
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So I'm so excited to have you on the show.
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I learned a little bit about you when we were at PRI and you won an award, and I'll let you tell about that, but so first, though, I want you to just share a little bit about yourself and your family, and then we're going to go on and learn how you got involved in motorsports.
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Awesome.
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Well, thank you so much for having me on.
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This is really an honor and I'm super excited.
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So a little bit about me.
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I am a 56 year old drag racing grandma.
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I am married 35 years or something like that.
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I think I don't know forever.
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I have four children and 11 grandchildren.
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Well, 10 grandchildren one on the way so 11 grandchildren.
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I have a dog named Sophia.
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She's a husky and she's crazy.
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So, yeah, I have a nice, nice big family, a very supportive family.
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Um, yeah, we're very blessed that's awesome.
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Yeah, that's.
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You have four children.
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Yeah, I had, I had four children.
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My son unfortunately has passed away, so my three, I still have my three daughters and I got you beat on the grandchildren how many?
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17.
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17.
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And I have at the end of the month.
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So there you go, got you beat there.
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I'm a lot older than you, so there's plenty of time.
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You might end up beating me in the long run.
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We'll see, oh, my gosh Crazy.
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Well, some of them are my step-grandchildren, but they're still my grandchildren.
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Me too, they all count.
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They all count, that's right yeah.
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So, Kelly, I know I love it, and every one of them is so different.
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Yeah, isn't it?
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crazy.
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You know we weren't brought up in the motorsports world, which I'm jealous.
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When I see kids at the track with their parents or grandparents I'm like man, what I wouldn't give to live the whole life of motorsports.
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I started drag racing at 51 years old.
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I became a health coach and during the time of being a health coach they poured so much goodness into me that I got self-confidence.
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I got goals and dreams which I never had, since I'm an alcoholic in recovery 10 years, so over 10 years.
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And they poured so much goodness into me that I just started having dreams and my husband would go out to Irwindale drag strip and spectate with his friends and I was like you know what?
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I'm going to go out with them one night.
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It'll be a date night.
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So I go out there and I'm watching these young kids and I'm like dude, I could totally do this.
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And I like to drive fast.
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And so I told my husband I went to a coach's breakfast and they had a napkin dream.
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So I wrote down on a nap.
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Husband, I went to a coach's breakfast and they had a napkin dream.
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So I wrote down on a napkin I want a drag race.
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And honestly, I don't even know where that came from.
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I didn't ever think that in my life it wasn't something that I had been passionate about.
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Just it just came to me.
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I want a drag race.
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I come home, I go, babe, I want a drag race.
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And he's like, okay, okay, we'll take your six-cylinder camaro out your daily driver and give it a go.
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And so we had a muffler, whatever system put on to make it, which I thought was going to sound like a v8.
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You know, you put the system on there, it doesn't.
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It sounds like a six-cylinder with an exhaust system on yeah so I go there's no way I'm taking that car sounding like that, that sounds ridiculous.
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And so he's like, okay, so he takes it to the shop and gets it removed.
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And I was like, oh my gosh, it's gonna happen.
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It's actually gonna happen.
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So October 10th 2019 was my first night of drag racing and, like my fourth pass down the strip, I got a perfect reaction time.
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I was absolutely hooked, like I couldn't make enough passes.
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I couldn't get enough of it.
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It was like a drug One night.
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I made 25 passes in one single night.
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I'm a little bit excessive.
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That's crazy, yeah, and but you know, what I love about your story is that you were not one bit afraid and you were not even thinking that you were too old or you, I'm a grandma, I shouldn't be doing this or I'm not gonna take my daily driver out on that track.
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You didn't think about any of those things, you were just hell bench, you were gonna go do it.
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Yep, that's for sure.
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And what Kelly wants, kelly gets.
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I'm glad for that.
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Yeah, that's cool.
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Yeah, so tell me about your what?
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What are you um?
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That was, that was 2019.
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Yep, so what have you been doing?
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You're still racing.
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What are you racing?
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What's your success been?
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Tell me all about it.
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So, uh, uh, right now we're doing not as much drag racing because Irwindale closed, uh in December, which was devastating, yeah, um.
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So since that happened, a friend of mine, jeff Stilwell, had connected me with some people in the land speed racing scene and they said we'll put you in a car, come on out.
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And so we went.
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A few weeks ago I got my first license in the land speed.
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Um, I really enjoyed it and, to be honest, I didn't think I would.
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I was like you know what.
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It's an opportunity.
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It'll look good on my racing resume.
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We'll just go do it, just to do it, and I fell in love with it.
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I absolutely loved it.
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The community, of course car community.
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Yeah.
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People in the car community are amazing.
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Yeah, they are, they are.
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And did the land speed racing out at El Mirage, and now we're talking about building a car for that.
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So we'll still drag race and we'll still land speed race.
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So you know, I'm trying to make, I'm trying to put everything into these last years of my life, because I'm not getting any younger and I want to make the most of it.
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I tell you what, since 2019, when I started racing, I've lived more life than I ever have.
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It's insane.
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I could believe that because there was something missing.
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Wasn't there, Kelly, somewhere in that path, that you just told me something was missing and you found it with racing and the racing family yes, yes.
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So I honestly, like, when I first started racing I was like this is my calling from god.
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Why would god say drag race, kelly?
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This is is your calling.
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And I really didn't understand why.
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But I was just going with it because I knew it was from God.
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And so I started a girls group called the Gorgeous Irwindale Racing Ladies, where we encourage females of all ages and all motor sports and even car shows and anything with a motor and a woman.
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We're like go, go, girl go.
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And so the core group kind of it dwindled, it kind of fell apart and I just hung in there and I kept racing, I was just doing my thing.
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And then my grandson, my oldest grandson, went into foster care.
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And when that, and my and his two sisters, my oldest granddaughters, and when that happened, like that was so devastating, I decided that's when I created Mavix Community Outreach, which is our nonprofit, and we introduced foster children and troubled teens to the world of motorsports.
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Because I tell you what, at 51 years old, I hadn't, I hadn't had passions or goals and I was stuck in addiction for all my life.
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And then I found the racing world and everything changed.
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I mean, I got, I have boundaries, like all these things I never had in my life.
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I found through the love of motorsports.
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Yeah.
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And so I wanted to do a make, a make something good out of the really ugly days of my life.
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And then, when Mavis was formed, I'm like that's why it's my calling from God.
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Now it all makes sense.
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Yeah.
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You just gotta believe and hold on, and you know so how did you come up with that name?
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It has to mean something special.
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It does.
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So my girlfriend, my business partner, Maria, is this okay?
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So Maven, one of my sponsors said you're a Maven, it's a woman who brings people together.
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So she took the word Maven and Phoenix rise from the ashes and made Maven.
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Oh yeah, that's cool.
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Yeah, maria Link is awesome.
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She's my business partner.
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She'd come out spectating with me and my husband when we'd go.
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Then she was on board when I started drag racing.
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Then we got her in a car for Demolition Derby.
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She always wanted to do a Demolition Derby, so now she does derbies.
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And then I said I want to make mavix.
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And she says, okay, let's do it, let's create mavix.
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And she's been on board by my side through everything the bad days of the girls crumble and but girls of arundel still around.
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It's just.
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It started out more like a group and now it's an organization where we just encourage women.
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Okay.
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Of all ages.
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Yeah, and so what?
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What's the closest like drag strip?
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Now to you.
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So the closest would be Famoso Bakersfield or Verona, San Diego.
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Okay, yeah, it's too bad.
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Or when Dale closed.
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What a mess, I can't believe.
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And it happened fast, like we did not know until just a few months before that it was happening.
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We heard talk, but you know, you always hear talk, yeah, and then it happened.
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It was like oh my gosh yeah, that's a shame that was devastating yeah, so tell me more now about Mavix, because I think that's where your heart is now.
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So your grandchildren went to foster care, which is so sad.
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It was so sad and it was during COVID.
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So they were in for 13 months because everything was pushed back, delayed, court was in video and just it was a nightmare.
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And so they're back home with mom and then my son's doing good, mom's doing great, the kids are fabulous.
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I get to have my grandson once or twice a week now and, oh my gosh, it's so awesome Life is getting so good.
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And so, you know, I just knew that me back in the day, not having any goals, any dreams, no passions, no interest in anything.
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Well then you get yourself into trouble.
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As soon as I had a passion for this, everything changed, and so I figured we could introduce some foster children to this world.
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They don't have to drag race, they could work on cars, they could tune cars, they could take pictures, they could do videography.
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Announcing there's so many areas of motorists.
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So right now we're trying to, you know, get us off the ground, and you know we're going to have a fundraiser coming up in July at an escape room to raise funds.
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We like to take my race car to schools.
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So we went to a school named McKinley and it was where they have a lot of troubled children and foster youth, and we brought the car out and then you get to start it for them and they get to get in it or just check it out up close and personal.
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And it just didn't get that.
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Could, you know, make them get interested in the motor sports scene.
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We pass out hot wheels, like all the kids love Hot Wheels.
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Yeah.
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We do that and pass out little flags, checkered flags, and hero cards and stickers.
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Yeah, yeah, all the stuff kids love.
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Yep, exactly.
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So we also work with a foster agency that Maria started up.
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So Maria works for Home Depot's headquarters and okay.
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So they wanted her to do a good event for the community so she decided to work with the foster kids.
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So she brings out about 200 foster children and their families at Christmas time and she had us come out.
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So we went out and we were like, oh my gosh, besides devastating and sad, it's beautiful to be out there.
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Bring the race car out to the.
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She has a little car show there now and so all the cars are there and the kids vote on their favorite car and I usually win.
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But last year she said no, you can't vote for her car because that's not fair.
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Yeah, so we host an event now.
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We partner with her on that.
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We get a lot of donations from Foster Love, which is the largest nonprofit in the country for foster youth.
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They give us bikes and skateboards, and clothing and shoes and like beautiful items, and they come to our event and then they basically shop, so they take what they want for free.
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You could have the bike, you could have the skateboard, you could have this and that and they go out with arms so full and their cars are stuffed.
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I've delivered bikes because they couldn't take everything, you know.
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Yeah.
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So we just want to make a difference in their lives as much as we possibly can, and it's an honor to be able to work with the kids.
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Yeah, so that's interesting that this is what you do, because I just did an interview last week with a gal that works for University of Northeast Northwestern I don't know if it's Eastern or Western, it's UNOH and it's in ohio and she's a recruiter for the college and she went to college there and she actually recruited a young gal from like, not very far from me, that races, that I've known from racing, and she said something to me and it's along the lines of what you're doing.
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She said she goes into the high schools and gives her presentation about their motorsports program because they're a huge motorsport.
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They have a, they have, um, a rally team, they have a drifting team, all kind and then they have degrees in motorsports and all.
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It's just amazing.
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So she said she goes into these schools and when she gives her presentation she said the thing that really gets her the most is when a kid says I, I didn't think I could go to college because I'm not a good student and I don't want to be a nurse or a chiropractor or a teacher or a whatever.
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Yep, but this is really cool.
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I want to do this.
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Yes, that is beautiful and then they go to unoh and and, like the young gal in uh that lives close to me, she's working on an arcane this summer wow, yeah, yeah, that's amazing, it is, and so you're.
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You know you're doing the same thing.
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You're exposing them to something that they would never have known about, and to the point to where you you're changing lives and you probably don't even know it.
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Yes, yes, like I say, you change one life as a generational line.
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Yeah.
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All their kids, all their grandchildren, like just generations to come.
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Especially motor sports.
00:17:47.095 --> 00:17:49.123
Yes, Because we know that.
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You know that really is a generational hobby, more than not.
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Right, I call it.
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It's not a hobby, it's a lifestyle.
00:17:56.990 --> 00:17:58.455
Well, it's a lifestyle.
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You're right, it assumes you, it does.
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Yeah, you can't think about anything else.
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Right, and I tell you what if you are into cars, you don't have money for drugs.
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So, that's a victory.
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Yeah, keep them out of trouble.
00:18:15.981 --> 00:18:17.265
I say, you know, take care of it before it becomes a problem.
00:18:17.265 --> 00:18:25.749
And if they start young in the motorsports world just having the interest in it alone, yeah, it could change the trajectory of their lives.
00:18:26.048 --> 00:18:37.328
Yeah it really does and so our long-term goal is to connect them with trade school scholarships in the motorsports industry, which could be photography, still Like it could be chefs.
00:18:37.328 --> 00:18:38.845
There's chefs for John Forrest.
00:18:38.845 --> 00:18:41.463
Oh yeah, NASCAR has chefs.
00:18:41.463 --> 00:18:46.269
Yeah, so there's so many, everything pretty much could be in the motorsports industry.
00:18:47.061 --> 00:18:48.207
So that's our long-term goal.
00:18:48.207 --> 00:18:54.093
Well, you need to get connected to Mara Henderson Would you connect me.
00:18:54.093 --> 00:18:57.868
I'll connect you because she's the gal at UNOH.
00:18:57.868 --> 00:19:02.990
Yes, and you know they recruit from all over the place.
00:19:02.990 --> 00:19:08.385
Yes, she and you would be a good connection I would love that very much.
00:19:08.526 --> 00:19:09.851
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
00:19:10.561 --> 00:19:12.127
She's amazing too.
00:19:12.127 --> 00:19:13.558
I just love talking to, I just love sounds like it.