My weekend at Darlington Speedway

First, let me start by saying I love the South and all it has to offer, especially the food!  (Percy and Willie’s is the bomb.)

This past weekend, through the generosity of our family of race fans, The NASCAR Foundation collected almost $10,000 in donations. Donations for the NASCAR Unites arm bands were split 50/50 with McLeod Children’s Hospital in Florence, SC and the Relief Effort.


 To view photos from Darlington Speedway, please click here. Or come visit me at Facebook on the 'Mrs. North Carolina International 2011' page.


We also had four (4) wonderful fans fly down from New Jersey for a VIP Experience and pace car rides which they had bid on through the NASCAR.COM/foundation ‘online auctions.’ Mark and his 3 friends took the opportunity to help a great charity and also have a ‘guys weekend’ at a race track they hadn’t had a chance to visit yet. (Don’t worry, they were wise and booked return flights home departing at 6am on Sunday so they’d be home to celebrate Mother’s Day with their wives.

The NASCAR Unites campaign encourages fans to visit NASCAR.COM/unites and volunteer 5 hours or support the effort by making a $5.00 donation for a ‘NASCAR Unites’ blue arm band. There are also numbered arm bands which have the driver numbers on them. This weekend, we collected NASCAR Driver autographs on these numbered arm bands. These will be available to bid on by visiting NASCAR.COM/foundation ‘online auctions.’ Big thanks to Jessica and Nancy for their help too!

To cap off the holiday weekend, I received a heartfelt email from a fan, and mom, who lost her son to a car accident. He would have been 35 years old on Mother’s Day and loved NASCAR. Cindy had heard about the new Officially Licensed Dale Earnhardt Jr. child car seats from Kids Embrace and offered to make a donation to provide these car seats to a local children’s hospital in her son’s honor. So, it is my honor to be able to make her wish come true. Stay tuned for more details and I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day.

Mrs. North Carolina International 2011