Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America stops in Dodge City
Eleven states in nine days across the “Loneliest Road in America,” U.S. Highway 50 and part of the original Route 66. That’s former NASCAR driver Kyle Petty’s plan for the 30th anniversary of his motorcycle charity ride.
Roughly 150 motorcycles will travel the more than 3,400 miles across 11 states during the Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America to raise money and awareness for Victory Junction—a camp dedicated to providing life-changing camping experiences for children with serious and chronic medical conditions. Since 1995, more than 9,575 riders have logged 13.3 million cumulative motorcycle miles and raised more than $23 million for Victory Junction and other children’s charities.
Petty and his entourage of former drivers and other racing enthusiasts hit the road on their motorcycles in Sonoma, California, on May 1 and reached Charolette, North Carolina on May 9. The route was much like the first route the group took on the first ride 30 years ago.
Petty was still racing back then and after the race at Sonoma, it just happened to be an off week. He decided to make the trek back to North Carolina on a motorcycle.
“Everybody said we were crazy. And then we said we’d do it for charity, everybody said we were geniuses,” Petty said. “What a great fundraiser.”
That first ride had about 25 or 30 guys riding back to Charolette.
“We had hit a few different places this year that we didn’t hit the first year, but it’s basically the same thing,” he said. “The crazy part is, we did it two years and then decided we wouldn’t do it the third year. And somebody said, ‘Man, you’ve already done twice. You need to do it the third year.’”
Petty and the guys made a pact and said, “let’s make it to five, and then we’ll quit.”
“And here we are, 30 years (later),” he said. “I guess we broke that pact, but we’re still doing it.”
The ride had planned stops along the way and the schedule included:
• May 1—Sonoma, California to Ely, Nevada;
• May 2—Ely, Nevada to Moab, Utah;
• May 3—Moab, Utah to Colorado Springs, Colorado;
• May 4—Colorado Springs, Colorado to Wichita, Kansas;
• May 5—Wichita, Kansas to Springfield, Missouri;
• May 6—Springfield, Missouri to Memphis, Tennessee;
• May 7—Memphis, Tennessee to Chattanooga, Tennessee;
• May 8—Chattanooga, Tennessee to Asheville, North Carolina;
• May 9—Asheville, North Carolina to Charlotte, North Carolina.
During the 30 years they’ve been doing the charity ride, Petty has traveled in all kinds of weather and routes. Adverse weather is nothing new for him. Even when he was racing, weather conditions played a role.
“I tell people all the time I drove a race car and just like farmers, if you play outside, you get rained on. That’s the way it is,” he said. “The weather is part of it. You don’t even think about it. You just go out and do your job.”
He said he just grew up that way, and it’s become part of the rides.
“It doesn’t make any difference—sleet, rain, man, we’ve been through it all,” he said. “I’m going to say we’ve been through snow. We’ve been through everything in the 30 years.”
Petty said his favorite thing about going on the ride, other than the people he rides with and the kids they’re doing it for—is the people they meet along the way.
“Man, that is the best part. You meet (people) from California to North Carolina, from Maine to Miami; we’ve been Seattle to Key West. We’ve been across this country just about every way you can go,” he said. “And I am always fascinated by the kindness and the people you meet, and they just want to talk and, they’re just great people out there.”
He said it’s fitting they’re doing it this year as it’s the 30th ride and the 250th anniversary of America “because we’re coming straight through America,” he said.
“Once you leave California, you enter America,” he said. “We’re going to be in America for a large part and portion of this ride. I’m going to tell you that, but it’s the people that is the greatest, greatest, greatest gift of this whole ride—the people you meet.”
He said being on the motorcycle lets him be more approachable, and if he were to travel the same route in a car, he’d have less of an opportunity to meet people except for gas and hotels.
“When you ride a motorcycle, everybody comes and talks to you, ‘Where you from? Oh my gosh, man, you got a North Carolina tag on that, you’re in Utah. Did you trailer that thing out here?’” Petty said. “I mean, people just talk to people on motorcycles. That is the fascinating part.”
The kids who are at Victory Junction, however, are the most important part of the ride. Petty said although many of them have life altering conditions or illnesses and won’t live the life of a “normal” kid, they still have a full life.
“These kids, the wind blows in their life every day and they don’t feel it. They don’t know it. It’s their life, it’s how they were born. It’s what they are, it’s their life,” Petty said. “And they make the most of it, and they don’t complain about it.”
Petty said any time he is having a bad day he’ll go to camp and “realize I’m having the greatest day of my life,” he said.
“It puts things back into perspective,” he said. “And these kids—(who) have chronic illnesses, life threatening illnesses—they’re known by their illness. There’s a lot of these kids that come they don’t go to school because they’re so sick that they can’t stay on that regular schedule.”
Sometimes the kids lose their identity and become the disease, and Petty doesn’t agree with that.
“The thing is, when these kids come to camp, it’s not you can’t, it’s that you can. You can climb the ropes course. You can ride a horse for the first time. You can catch a fish at the Bass Pro Shop catch and release program. You can get in the swimming pool,” he said. “You can do things that maybe you’ve never done in your life and never had an opportunity. And that’s a very empowering thing for an 8- or 9-year-old, be able to do something for the first time.”
Petty said camp is really a hospital in disguise. In the summer they have as many as seven or eight full time doctors and as many as 40 or 50 full-time nurses that work all summer long.
“We can do dialysis there. We can do chemo there,” he said. “It’s part of Paul Newman Serious Fun group of camps.”
Newman raises money for his camps with the proceeds from salad dressing, and Petty said they raise money in the same sort of vein, but with the motorcycle ride as one of their biggest fundraisers.
“Camp is an empowering place for kids,” he said. “I wish we could heal every one of these kids that come through the gate, but it’s not about healing, it’s about empowering them to be the kids that they are and to do the things they do.”
For more information about the 30th Anniversary Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America or to apply for future rides, send an email to [email protected]. More information or to donate visit www.kylepettycharityride.com.
Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or [email protected].
