CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The year was 1992, and Ray Evernham was not the household name in racing that he is today.

In fact, Evernham was a nobody. He had little money and less health insurance.

“

I can't really explain to you what it means to be so lost in a town that you're not familiar with, and with a sick child.

”

-- RAY EVERNHAM

He had only recently ceased pursuing his own dream as a race-car driver and was still nursing the injuries that had ended that pursuit against his will. Two weeks into a job at Hendrick Motorsports -- a job so new that the company health insurance hadn't yet kicked in for his family -- Evernham received an alarming phone call from his wife, who was back in New Jersey with their 1-year-old son, affectionately known as Ray J.

Mary Evernham told her husband that Ray J had been diagnosed with leukemia and would need to be treated at a hospital in Manhattan.

"I was scared to death," Evernham said. "You're not prepared for anything like that. You're basically just fighting for survival."

The Evernhams found solace and comfort in the Ronald McDonald House that was located "right around the corner" from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. They were able to stay there at minimal expense while young Ray J received treatment during the next two years.

Evernham, who went on to win three Cup championships as Jeff Gordon's crew chief and then founded and ran his own race team, never forgot the hospitality and generosity of the Ronald McDonald House charitable organization, which includes nearly 300 RMH facilities world-wide. On Tuesday, he stood in front of the future site of the next Ronald McDonald House to be built just around the corner and down the street from yet another hospital in Charlotte -- and handed over a $250,000 check to help ensure that it becomes reality sooner rather than later.

"This is something that I have to do," Evernham said. "You just don't let things like this go by without getting involved. I really have been very blessed my whole life.

"I've been very fortunate to have made the right turns and be put in the right situations. When you see something like this happening, and you've been that blessed, it's your duty to help."

Mona Johnson-Gibson, executive director of the RMH of Charlotte, said the land has been purchased and two older homes currently on side-by-side lots will soon be razed so construction can begin on a 28-room, 35,000-square foot building that families of seriously ill children will be able to call their temporary home.

"Charlotte is the last major city in the United States that doesn't currently have a Ronald McDonald House," she said. "[Former Charlotte] Mayor Pat [McCrory] used to ask why we had to be last -- and I would tell him it was because we wanted to be the best."

Thanks to Evernham and many other generous donors, Johnson-Gibson said she believes that is going to be the case. She said construction costs of building the facility, originally estimated at more than $7 million, have been pared to $5.5 million and could eventually be cut to $5.3 million. (Continued)