Roush Fenway Racing driver visited Boys & Girls Club on Thursday
LOUDON, N.H. — When Ryan Reed was but a little tyke tagging along while his father, Mark, competed in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West off and on throughout the early 2000s, the XFINITY Series driver had the privilege of meeting his hero — Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I was able to meet a few of the drivers (growing up) and I was at the race track a lot and he was racing … so I was at (Auto Club) Speedway and I was a huge Dale Jr. fan and I got his autograph and I was pretty starstruck,” Reed said Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway before finishing 13th in the Lakes Region 200. “That’s probably my biggest ‘Oh my God I can’t believe I met him’ story.
“That was back when he was in the No. 8 Budweiser Chevy so there were tons of red jackets at the race track and I was a proud Dale Jr. fan.”
Knowing how cool it was to meet and greet a race car driver at such a young age, Reed visited the Boys & Girls Club of Concord, New Hampshire with Comcast XFINITY representatives on Thursday to meet with children interested in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math) and tour the facilities.
Reed, still just 21-years-old, may have let his inner child show a little.
“It’s my first time ever going to a Boys & Girls Club and I had an amazing time,” said the second-year XFINITY driver. “I didn’t realize how amazing the facilities are and the kids were having a blast and I got to go play some games with them and play dodgeball and capture the flag and got to hang out on the monkey bars and all that. It was just a really cool experience and they’re amazing kids and had awesome questions. A lot of them had some really cool racing questions, it surprised me how much they knew about the sport. It was a lot of fun and definitely a cool experience.”
While they surprised him with racing questions, Reed surprised the kids with a set of race tickets to Saturday’s Lakes Region 200 XFINITY Series event, inviting the group to the “Magic Mile” as his special guests.
Prior to the race, the Roush Fenway Racing driver answered some more of their questions and showed them the ins and outs of his No. 16 Ford Mustang in the garage.
Thursday, he visited their playground. Saturday they got to see his.
“We kind of switched roles today and I thought it was really neat they could come out and I could show them around the race track a little bit; show them around the car,” Reed said. “It was cool, they seemed to be pretty interested and the look on their faces was pretty fun.”
Reed also introduced the kids to his lead race engineer in Gilford, New Hampshire native Katelyn Bernasconi. Where STEM was such an integral part of why these particular children were interested in meeting Reed in the first place — apart from him being a NASCAR driver, of course — it made sense to meet with Bernasconi, but Reed, too, knows the impact the program has on our nation’s young minds.
“I think (STEM) is great. It’s a great program and it’s definitely really important,” Reed said. “Racing is a great example of a sport that’s kind of being taken over by technology and is really just a technology-based sport. There’s nothing we do that doesn’t involve a computer anymore.
“I think that this is a prime example of how important that program is and getting kids involved and ultimately, hopefully, end up in NASCAR.”
In 2014, Comcast NBCUniversal entered into a five-year partnership with BGCA to support the launch of My.Future, a new technology initiative designed to teach Club members about our digital world and ignite their passion for technology. The five-year, national partnership is valued at tens of millions of dollars in cash and in-kind support.
My.Future is a next-generation technology initiative that personalizes the program for each member through engaging project-based, digital activities. My.Future will provide Club members with the ability to safely build, explore and communicate in their own digital worlds and ignite their passion for technology. It will also give Club members the skills they need to pursue promising careers.
Comcast NBCUniversal has supported local Boys & Girls Clubs for more than 15 years. In 2010, Comcast took their support to the national level as a sponsor of BGCA’s digital literacy initiative dedicated to providing youth with computer skills needed for success in the 21st century.