This year’s “Rainey’s Ride to the Races” event at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca brought enthusiastic race fans and road racing stars together to have fun and raise money for the Roadracing World Action Fund. All of the 40 spots available for the ride were sold out plus several spots made available at the last minute, and each $500 ticket purchased included a three-day admission ticket for the MotoAmerica race weekend. Twenty tickets were purchased by the (Terry) Vance Family Foundation.
Others donating at the event were noted Roadracing World Action Fund contributor Leslie Stretch, who, with his donation of $25,000, tops the individual contributor list with an all-time total of $175,000 in donations; The Talbott Family Foundation, donating $10,000 ($50,000 total); and Mark Mitchell, donating $8,000 ($14,000 total). Other cash donations brought the total raised to nearly $100,000.
Road racing and track day organizations: N2 Trackday’s most recent fundraiser totaled $33,553; PRE (Performance Riding Experience) Track Days raised $23,004; and OMRRA, $10,000. The California Roadracing Association (CRA), Yamaha Champions Riding School, and the Bagger Racing League each donated $5,000.
Many have donated this year to help replace Airfence sections lost in a fire which was caused by a crash at Road Atlanta; and RideSmart Motorcycle School in Texas is fundraising to cover deployment of much needed soft barriers at its school and track day events.
In Memory of…
NEMRR raised $21,461 in memory of Scott Briody, killed in MotoAmerica competition at Brainerd International Raceway in 2022.
The family of racer Jason Aguilar, who died in a bicycle accident, raised $966 on Facebook and donated it to the fund in his memory.
About the Roadracing World Action Fund
The Roadracing World Action Fund – a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization – began back in 2001 as a grassroots movement to improve racetrack safety for motorcycle racers and riders. At the time, haybales or stacks of tires were sometimes placed in front of concrete walls for rider protection in case of a crash. A far better solution for rider safety existed – FIM-homologated inflatable soft barriers which absorb the energy of a crash. Soft barriers–made by Airfence or Alpina and purchased the Roadracing World Action Fund using donations and fund raisers–help improve the chances that racers can walk away from a crash which in the past might have caused catastrophic injury, or even death.
The Roadracing World Action Fund gained the support of the motorcycle community, as racers, riders, family and friends, motorcycle businesses, racing organizations and racetracks helped make use of soft barriers the standard, rather than the exception, for motorcycle races and track days across the nation. Now, from Laguna Seca to Daytona, Motorsports Ranch to VIR, Road Atlanta to Road America, and many more, soft barriers are deployed more frequently and in greater quantities than ever before, as the Roadracing World Action Fund continues its mission of helping prevent racetrack injuries through motorcycle road racing safety education, and by organizing donations and funding to purchase and deploy FIM-homologated soft barriers.
