All News Kyle Petty Michael Waltrip

Waltrip to run for Charity – $1 million goal:

June 19, 2004 at 12:00 AM
  • #15-Michael Waltrip held a brief Q&A session with the media on Pit Road at Michigan International Speedway this morning while training for the Las Vegas Marathon. By participating in the Marathon on January 30, 2005, he hopes to raise $1 million for the Victory Junction Gang Camp. Kyle Petty was also on hand to lend his support for Waltrip’s effort. “I felt like it was important for people to remember that Kyle (Petty) and those folks have done such a great job raising all the money to build the camp. It’s going to take a real commitment from the whole community to maintain the camp. We wanted to draw attention to the fact that if the kids come there for a year, it’s going to cost $2 or $3 million. The donations need to continue to roll in. When you do something new, it gets a lot of attention. We want to make sure that attention remains on the camp and what Kyle and the whole Petty family have built. I thought this was a neat way to draw attention to it. I have some wonderful sponsors that are going to get involved and help. It’s become a real joy for Buffy and I to work on and to see where it all goes.”
    “We want to raise $1 million. I think we can do that with the sponsors we have and with the fans. We’re going to come up with a program where people can log online and train with me. When they join the Marathon they’ll get maybe a die cast car. We’re going to do everything we can to get the fans involved. With such a hefty goal, we’re going to need the masses to pitch in $10 at a time in order to accomplish our goal. But we feel pretty confident that with the folks we have around us and the sponsors we have and the way the race fans have responded to the camp that we can accomplish our goal.”
    “The plan is to have an announcement in July at Daytona showing the fans how they can get involved and talking about the wonderful corporate partners we have line up to be a part of it. This is just an eye-opener to let folks know I am going to do this and hopefully get some interest built in it. And then in July we’re going to announce how exactly the fans can contribute and how they can be a part of me running the marathon. Hopefully by then we can get some more drivers to commit to running the marathon too. We’re planning to offer that up in relay form so that we can maybe get 10 drivers to run a mile or so or a couple of miles apiece to knock out a marathon in that fashion as well. Maybe we should get the media involved. That would be interesting.”(Chevy Notes and Quotes PR)(6-19-2004)