The past 30 days have been insanely busy for me as I competed in the Fireball Run for my second year, our season finale at the Houston Grand Prix with Pirelli World Challenge and then a week in Austin, Texas instructing with Cadillac’s V-Lab (not to mention I didn’t see my front doorstep for about three months during the race season)! Needless to say, I’m happy to be writing this blog on my couch in my pj’s.
You may remember my Fireball Run blog from last year but just in case you don’t, allow me to first tell you what it’s all about. Fireball Run consists of 40 teams from all over the nation to compete in an 8 day, 2,000 mile interactive motor vehicle adventure game. We have to navigate the route using everything (and everyone) at our disposal solving clues to accomplish missions. In other words, for 8 days we turn our lives over to Fireball Run and willingly agree to getting zero sleep and have no clue where and what we’re doing each day. Sounds fun right?
But let me tell you, this is one of the coolest experiences I’ve been fortunate to be a part of getting to see America’s great landscapes, see and learn about things I would of never forced myself to do on my own, creating new and unique friendships all while helping aid in the recovery of missing children. Fireball Run is the nation’s largest recovery effort for missing kids and since 2007 this adventurally is responsible for finding 43 missing children. Each team is assigned a child from their region which we represent on the car and we distribute over 1,000 posters everywhere we go.
I always get asked, “Who competes in this and what kind of cars are entered?” This year we were amongst business leaders, politicians, stunt drivers, a two-time world champion female barrel racer, an astronaut, and even legendary chief test driver for Lamborghini and many more. I competed with my teammate from last year, Tarah Mikacich, professional wakeboarder who I grew up water skiing with! The theme this year was “Movie Stars and Cars” and some people definitely played their characters well! Hendrick Honda and HendrickCars.com were extremely generous to lend us a brand new 2013 Honda Civic Si therefore it totally made sense that we go as the chicks from the movie series, Fast & Furious! I was excited about driving the Hendrick Honda Civic Si being that I raced a Si in 2010-2012!
There was also a Lamborgini Gallardo Balboni, Ferrari 360, an ambulance wrapped to look like M*A*S*H, a Rally Fighter wrapped to look like a cop car, massive trucks, the “Back to the Future” DeLorean, a classic Trans Am, etc.
Having one year under our belts we knew going into it how to play the game better. We had alliances from last year and extended our help when we uncovered clues to form more alliances and used CB radios to communicate. Why wouldn’t we just use a cell phone you ask? Because Fireball Run brought us to ridiculously remote areas, I didn’t have service for a solid three days and Tarah’s was in and out a lot. We also tried to find locals in every town to show us the way, and when all else failed we stuck close to the other flamboyant and extreme vehicles! Our pink racing flag graphics thanks to VisionX Custom Graphics was hard to miss as well. From the get-go we knew we were doing well simply because our competitors knew what our rear bumper said, “BeatByAGirl.org!”
We started in Longmont, Colorado which was affected by the severe floods. When we arrived you could see where the water lines on homes and businesses were. Fireball Run came together to help deliver food to people through the charity Meals on Wheels and made financial contributions to the community. We went to the Pueblo Weisbrod Aircraft Museum and sat in the cockpit of the Navy’s first supersonic aircraft, built in 1955.
We now know what a $20,000 squash blossom style turquoise necklace looks like on us while we were in Gallup, New Mexico. At a Navajo Chapter house we met one of the oldest living “Code Talkers” from WWII (Navajo was the only language/code the Germans and Japanese couldn’t crack). Tears came to my eyes listening to the 92 year old soldier as he sat in a wheelchair with cataracts covering both eyes. The sacrifice that he and other Navajos made for our country was very moving. The Navajo people, private as they are, welcomed us like family. They showed us their way of weaving, jewelry craftsmanship, and cooking.
While in Mesa, Arizona I met Miss Lee Doerr at Falcon Field Airbase. She is a WWII American hero from the W.A.S.P. program. She was such a spitfire and extremely heroic, humble and inspirational. We definitely connected when I told her that I am a racing driver. She even asked for a ride!
We met so many great people in every town we went through. Thousands of people came out to support and graciously host us. The community effort was heartwarming! The residents and business owners were so happy with our efforts and very willing to hang missing child posters.
By the last day of Fireball Run, we were exhausted, out of clean socks and home sick, yet, we didn’t want it to end. We just wanted a day off! We made more u-turns this day than any other. Windows were very tight to make it to missions and gather as many bonus points as possible. We had been somewhere in the top 5 for almost the entire rally, but anything could happen on the last day. We finally made it to the finish line in Riverside, California to celebrate with Lucas Oil and K&N Filters handing out stickers and brochures to the people in the community.
Tarah and I loved getting to partake in this incredible production, from which 20 webisodes and a movie (premiering at the Orlando Film Festival next year) will be made. We have many people to thank for putting us in the Fireball Ball Run: Hendrick Honda, TrueCar, Lucas Oil, K&N Filters, Sportique Brands, BeatByAGirl.org, RFX Transport, O’Brien Watersports, Great Lakes Boat Top, Westland Covers and SayiWon’t. We also humbly express our sincerest gratitude to the communities that hosted us and to the whole Fireball Run production. It was “epic” as Fireballers say!