KYLE PETTY

Story and photos by Dwight Drum
Web work by Gary Larsen

Kyle Petty Key Lime Ride II

The end of the NASCAR racing season is the beginning of other moments for popular driver Kyle Petty. One big moment is another motorcycle event for Petty’s Charity Ride Across America.

Charity rides are for Victory Junction Gang Camp, a free year-round camp for children with chronic or life-threatening illnesses located near Greensboro, N.C. Kyle and Pattie Petty founded the camp in 2000 in memory of their son Adam, who was tragically killed in a racing accident.

“The Key Lime Ride is another great way to raise money and awareness for the Victory Junction Gang camp,” Petty said. “Plus, I can’t think of a better way to unwind after the season than to ride my Victory motorcycle through Florida.”

Homestead-Miami Speedway to Key West Key West to Naples to Tampa Bay area at Sun City Center, then Gainesville and Jacksonville and finally Fernandina Beach.

“Kyle is an old friend,” Gray said. “When I was working with Winston we did a lot with Kyle. When I started working at the track at Homestead-Miami Speedway, I really wanted to do a charity ride with Kyle. We talked about it and going down to Key West is one of the nicest rides in the country, so he was all for it. So we put this together about three years ago, this charity ride.”

“Kyle has a great team to work with for putting a ride together. Nothing better than riding down to Key West the day after a race with 120 guys on motorcycles. It’s a lot of fun and it goes to a great cause. The Victory Junction Gang Camp in North Carolina is going to be a fantastic facility for terminally ill kids. That’s what this is all about and Kyle is just a great guy to put all this together.

Zoomster questions from Dwight:

“Just the people, when you do stuff like this. Any other time, I just like riding by myself, but we do the big ride across country and do the charity stuff. The charity stuff that motorcyclists do is phenomenal, and that’s the best part about it.”

“No. The most I’ve ever done is about 38,000 miles. One year I rode everywhere we went to and from every race track; California, two or three times, and Phoenix. That’s the most, everything else has been short. This year I’ve probably only ridden about 8 or 9 thousand miles.”