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.

"In this economy, it's a good time to build if you have the money and a good cause to push," she said.

Johnson-Gibson said construction companies in Charlotte have agreed to do much of the work at cost. She said Evernham's donation brings the total of pledges already secured to more than $6 million and that construction could therefore begin within the next 60 days, although the total fund-raising goal for the RMH project is $9 million to ensure that the building can be properly outfitted and assured of at least two years of operating capital.

“

It's very, very important that we and the city of Charlotte see that this place gets built and that it gets used by families for years to come who seek that comfort.

”

-- RAY EVERNHAM

Evernham said he's simply happy to be of help. He also has agreed to serve on the charity's executive board. He said his deep-seated need to serve goes back to those uncertain days in 1992.

"Even though I was from New Jersey, I really didn't know anything about New York. I was just kind of scared to death," he said. "And when we went up there, there was just no way in the world we would have been able to pay for any of that. Ronald McDonald was right around the corner [from the hospital] and they let us stay in there. I think it was $20 a night -- and throughout the course of Ray J's treatment, I probably stayed there 10 times. And I know that my wife [now his ex-wife as he since has divorced and remarried], my mom and Ray J all stayed there a lot more than that.

"It's kind of a safe haven. You can sit and talk to other families. You can read books. You have access to phones and computers, and there are people there who have been through it and are going through it, and you're very close to your child. I don't know that I would have been able to survive if we had had to stay 40 or 50 miles outside the city. I don't know that we would have been able to afford it."

Evernham's son, now 18, "has beaten the leukemia" and recently made his father "very, very proud" by graduating from public high school, but still faces health issues related to autism. Evernham said the entire family could not have made it through Ray J's early diagnosis and treatment without the assistance of the Ronald McDonald House.

"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," Evernham said. "I can tell you that those parents who are going through that in the future [in Charlotte] will find some comfort within these walls. It's very, very important that we and the city of Charlotte see that this place gets built and that it gets used by families for years to come who seek that comfort."

As he delivered the over-sized [in more ways than one] check to RMH officials Thursday, Evernham grinned and joked by assuring them, "This is not one of the championship checks we had reprinted."

Then he hinted at his own fund-raising prowess by adding, "We're going to be twisting the arms of our friends so we can see some more checks like this one."