South Buxton Raceway – When the Canadian National Autism Foundation goes to a track for its Kid’s Race program, they look for a few drivers willing to place an awareness decal on their cars.
One South Buxton Raceway driver, Jeff Daniels, has displayed the ‘Autism Awareness’ logo on the hood of his No. 20 car in the Schinkels Gourmet Meats UMP Modifieds all season. Daniels carries the logo in support of his wife Sarah, who works with autistic children.
Several other drivers will be approached to put the logo on their cars for Saturday’s first Autism Awareness at South Buxton Raceway as a part of the CNAF’s Kid’s Racing program.
And the pressure is going to be on Daniels and all of the others drivers who don the Autism Awareness decal to match what happened at Brighton Speedway last Saturday night.
“Phil Potts was kind enough to put the Autism Awareness decals on his race car and he went out and won the race for the kids,” said Sam McKinney, a director with the CNAF.
Potts won the Pro Late Model feature and his car owners donated all their winnings on the night to the foundation.
South Buxton Raceway is the eighth track in Canada to host a CNAF Kid’s Racing awareness night.
“We’ve had a lot of success every track we’ve gone,” said McKinney.
South Buxton will be the second of back-to-back nights for the CNAF, which is holding its third annual Kid’s Night at Ohsweken Speedway on Friday night.
“We met Blake at Ohsweken last year, and he invited us to come down,” McKinney said of South Buxton Raceway promoter Blake Outhouse.
“When we heard they were doing dirt tracks, we got on board immediately,” said Outhouse.
South Buxton is one of three new tracks added to this year’s Kid’s Race schedule, as first-time events were held at Peterborough in July and Scotia Speedworld in Dartmouth, N.S., in August.
Delaware Speedway hosted its second annual Kid’s Race on June 7 while the other events were held at Brighton, Merrittville and Capital Speedway in Ashton, Ont.
Kid’s Race started in 2010 as an idea to create a new platform for autism research and awareness.
“Kid’s Race is all about accepting our loved ones with autism,” said CNAF president Tina Fougere in a press release.
“The overwhelming support from track owners, track officials, drivers, pit crews and fans have put a lot of smiles on a lot of faces.”
The CNAF will have an information tent with literature about autism awareness.
Representatives from the CNAF were in the region earlier this summer obtaining sponsorship from area businesses for their program, which will distributed at the track.
The CNAF purchased 1,000 tickets from South Buxton, which they gave to sponsors who purchased advertising to give to employees and customers.
“We’re looking forward to having a big night,” said Outhouse.
“Autism is a huge deal in Chatham-Kent, I think we all know of families who are affected by autism, so this is our way of showing support to these families.
“Everyone at the track – the drivers, teams, staff and fans – are always tremendous in showing support to special causes, and I know this is going to be a big, big success,” Outhouse said.
The CNAF would like to express its gratitude to the sponsors who helped make their first visit to South Buxton possible.
Pit Notes:
Merlin’s Eren Vanderiviere will be looking for his fourth straight Windride Transportation Sport Stocks feature win. He already had a four-feature win streak in June-July. Vanderiviere has a 102-point lead over Merlin’s Steve Shaw atop the division standings with three race nights left, including the Sept. 7 championship night.
Steve Shaw Jr. is also second in his division, trailing Cottam’s Denis DeSerrano by 64 points in the Tirecraft Mini-Mods. Shaw Jr. was only able to trim four points off the deficit after last week’s first career feature win in the class, as DeSerrano won the heat and was second in the feature.
Chatham’s Darryl Hoekstra’s second feature win of the season helped him open a 106-point lead over Leamington’s Joel Dick in the Schinkels Gourmet Meats UMP Modifieds.
Ridgetown’s Dale Glassford is the only second-place points driver who was able to gain valuable ground last week as his sixth feature win in the last seven race nights reduced his deficit to 61 points behind Chatham’s Gregg Haskell in the Lube Tech/Great Canadian Oil Change UMP Late Models. However, Glassford has to keep putting together strong feature finishes while Haskell would have to sit out a feature to have any chance at overtaking the points lead.
Vanderiviere leads all drivers with eight feature wins while Glassford has seven and DeSerrano six.
DeSerrano’s 22 checkereds lead all drivers, two more than Vanderiviere while Cottam’s Rob Quick has 17 in the Mini-Mods and Shaw Sr. 15.
The annual Rick Haskell memorial race for the Late Models highlights the Aug. 31 race program.
The grandstand opens Saturday at 5:30 p.m., racing starts at 7 p.m.
From: Mike Bennett/ South Buxton Raceway
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