Cade Whitenton at the 3rd Annual Step Up To Cancer Race with his Pro-Line PRO-2 SC Truck

On September 20th my dad and I attended the 3rd Annual Step Up To Cancer Race at the Gears Club in Harlingen, Texas. Some of you may remember this track from the 2005 ROAR Nationals. Jerry Lewis and his crew organized the race and I helped with donations from all of my great sponsors. The goal of this race is to donate all of the proceeds to a family or individual that has been affected by cancer. This year the race benefited David Lovett. David is well known in Texas for owning and running the RC Pro Series for a number of years. David is a big reason I race RC today. He and his wife Susie ran a great series and I am very thankful for all of the hard work and dedication they put into the series. This race is Gears’ feature race of the year and they generously donate all the entry fees to the recipient every year. Along with the entries we had donations for the BBQ lunch, donations for the drinks and we also have a live auction. As you can tell the race was secondary and helping a friend was the goal of the day.

GEARS prepared a fun layout for the race and when the qualifiers started we had 90 entries. Trophies were donated for the expert classes and prizes for the sportsman classes, so everyone had their eye on the prize. Well Mother Nature decided to throw a wrench in our race day after the 6th heat and it rained a couple of inches in an hour or so. Disappointed, we had to cancel the race. But remembering why we were here, everyone stayed and we had a great live auction raising $3,400.00. At the end of the day when everything was added up between t-shirt sales, entry fees, donations, and auction items we were able to give David a little over $6,500.00. It was an awesome day and the only thing that would have made it better is if David and Susie could have joined us.

I want to thank all of my sponsors for their generous donations and especially Daniel and Pro-Line for the PRO-2 SC Truck kit along with the apparel. Also big thanks to Team #greasybrah for getting together and helping. Even though we didn’t get to race the real winners were all of the racers that came out and gave their time and money to a great cause. Without them this could never be as successful as it was. I also want to thank my dad for helping me with my sponsors donations and my good buddy Jerry Lewis for having such a fun and rewarding race. Sometimes it isn’t just about racing but racing for a cause.