NASCAR Team Partners
With The ALS Association

A NASCAR team is starting its engine this season for The ALS Association and is helping the organization race to and cross the finish line for a cure.



'Racin' for a Cure' car with The ALS Association logo on the hood

The team, which includes a person with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, has begun racing with The Association’s logo on its cars at events across America in a drive to raise $1 million for ALS research and promote awareness among what has been called the nation’s largest spectator sport.
To put a local face on the disease, at every race, a patient identified by the local ALS Association chapter will serve as an honorary pit crew member. These patients and their family members will sit in the pit area and be at the center of the action as well as participate in pre- and post-race interviews.

The team, “Racin’ for a Cure,” was established by NASCAR agent Scott Pfeiffer, who has ALS. All proceeds from donations received and merchandise sold through the "Racin’ for a Cure" Web site (http://www.racinforacure.com/) will support The Association’s research program. Team owner and Pfeiffer friend Shawn Keep has generously provided all of the team merchandise at cost through his promotional items company, PromoGiant.

“There is an urgent need for better treatments and, ultimately, a cure for this terrible disease,” said Gary A. Leo, president and CEO of The Association. “By drawing attention and raising much-needed research funds from the large and intensely loyal NASCAR community, Scott Pfeiffer and the Racin’ for a Cure team are providing an enormous boost in this effort.”

Pfeiffer, a 42-year-old Fort Atkinson, Wis., resident diagnosed with ALS last year, knows from experience that more needs to be done in the way of educational outreach to the public about the disease.

“When you tell people you have cancer they know what that is, but when I would tell people I had ALS, a lot of them didn’t know what I was talking about,” said Pfeiffer, a lifelong NASCAR fan who represents Derek Thorn, a 21-year-old NASCAR driver who burst onto the scene in his first season. “With the enormous popularity of NASCAR, we feel we can start to change that.”

Thorn will drive for the "Racin’ for a Cure" team in the 2008 NASCAR Camping World Series and the 2008 ASA Late Model Series Challenge Division racing season, which began on March 14 and extends through September. Events are televised nationally on ESPN, ESPN2 and the SPEED channel and watched by crowds in the tens of thousands.