Richard Petty says he's moved by the way all of NASCAR has come together to help the Victory Junction Gang camp. Credit: Autostock
By Richard Petty, Special to Turner Sports Interactive
November 5, 2003
12:35 PM EST (1735 GMT)
Take a look at Kyle Petty's Dodge this week at Rockingham.
He is driving something a little bit different. Yeah, it's the same Georgia-Pacific/Brawny No. 45 but it kind of looks like a group of kindergartners got hold of it after eating chocolate cake. There are handprints all over the thing.
But they look pretty good.
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He is running the Hands To Victory/Georgia-Pacific Dodge this week. Designed by Sam Bass, the car features the handprints of 46 different NASCAR Winston Cup drivers on it. They all picked a spot, dunked their hands in paint and put them on the car. It shows a whole sport pulling together for one really great cause -- the Victory Junction Gang camp.
Kyle and Pattie founded Victory Junction in honor of Adam Petty, their son and mine and Lynda's grandson. The camp will be a year-round, multi-disease camp serving children from the Carolinas and Virginia. It will provide sessions to children ages seven to 15 with life-threatening illnesses.
The Victory Junction Gang Camp will have a racing theme that allows campers to begin their experience by entering the camp through a tunnel and crossing a starting line into the world of racing.
When complete, Victory Junction's 75-acre site will have more than 36 buildings, including a dining hall, gym, pool, theater, therapeutic equestrian center, arts and crafts center, race shop, and 16 camper cabins.
The Victory Junction Gang Camp, a Proud Charity of NASCAR, is scheduled to open summer of 2004 and will be free to children and their families. If you want to know more about it, check 'em out at www.victoryjunction.org.
Die-cast models of the "Hands to Victory" car, along with additional "Hands to Victory" merchandise including t-shirts, replica hoods and mouse pads, are available for purchase, raising funds for Victory Junction.
The participating drivers donated their royalties to the program, and the various merchandise manufacturers are also making contributions to the camp. Merchandise is available at all 700 Toys R Us stores, on www.nascar.com, on the Victory Junction website and at the Petty Enterprises trackside trailer.
Mechanix Wear has also created a special glove for the "Hands to Victory" program. All NASCAR Winston Cup crew members will be given these gloves, which feature the Victory Junction logo and "Hands to Victory," to wear during pre-race and race activities at Rockingham.
One set of gloves from each team will be autographed by all the team members and auctioned for Victory Junction. These special gloves are also available for purchase at the Petty Enterprises trackside trailer or by visiting www.sportsdesign.com.
The whole thing is a pretty cool deal, and it does a lot of good. It's something that Kyle and Pattie started but, to be honest, it's when everybody comes together like this -- the drivers, NASCAR, the merchandise companies -- that I'm the proudest of our sport.
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