NHRA goes pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month
NHRA teams are, as customary, getting onboard with National Breast Cancer Awareness month this October.
Alexis Dejoria
Anne Proffit
For the third consecutive year, Alexis DeJoria Racing will fund free mammograms, this year conducting the program at two NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events during the six-race Countdown to the Championship: Dallas and Las Vegas.
The latter venue has hosted free mammograms for race fans the past two years; Dallas is new for this year and represents DeJoria’s allegiance to her home state of Texas; she lives in the Austin area.
Free Mammograms for the Fans returns
DeJoria’s Funny Car, which is entered in NHRA’s Countdown six-race playoff and currently holds ninth place points, will be pink for the entire month through the penultimate race at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“With the success of ‘Free Mammograms for the Fans’ the last two years, we decided to expand the program to include the Dallas race, which now falls during National Breast Cancer Awareness month in October,” DeJoria explained. “I really want to thank the Patron Spirits Co. and Toyota for their support, everyone who bought items on our eBay fundraising page, purchased our pink Fight Like a Girl bracelets and made donations. It all goes toward this very wonderful life-saving cause and we would not be able to provide this service to our fans without their support,” she emphasized.
Schumacher Electric Corp. (SEC) and Don Schumacher Racing are getting onboard with the program as well, with a newly announced promotion that will see the seven-car (three Top Fuel dragsters; four Funny Car entries) donate 10 percent of all October winnings to Matco’s “Tools for the Cause” fund-raising effort that benefits Susan G Komen’s efforts to battle breast cancer.
An August promotion to benefit Susan G. Komen raised more than $600,000 through Brown sponsor Matco’s “Tools for the Cause.”
A winning start
The Schumacher effort began last weekend at Maple Grove Raceway outside Reading, Penn. and continues at Texas Motorplex near Dallas and at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway the final weekend of the month. Throughout this month, SEC, the world’s largest manufacturer of battery chargers and DSR will each contribute five percent of its winnings from the total won by DSR’s seven professional teams.
The program got off to a significant start as both Antron Brown and Jack Beckman won their races in Top Fuel and Funny Car, respectively. Brown’s victory was his third consecutive in the Countdown; he’s the first driver to ever start the six-race contest with three wins.
This month, as he has in the past. Top Fuel standout, 2012 champion and current points leader Brown pilots a pink DSR dragster for each of the three October races. “October is a very important month in our series because it’s right in the middle of our Countdown to the Championship playoff,” Brown advised, “and October means even more to our Matco Tools team here at DSR because it is Breast Cancer Awareness. My wife’s mother is a breast cancer survivor and this disease has affected our family as well as many others.”
Throughout the NHRA Mello Yello paddock in Reading, there were pink themes with the start of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The momentum should swell through to the end of October as more teams show their strength by focusing on pink designs.
In addition to aiding a great cause, it sure adds a lot of festivity to the racetrack and, as both Brown and Beckman have shown in the first of three October races, gives funding to a great cause.
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