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BRANT JAMESAdam Petty's legacy shines bright at the North Carolina facility.
It would have been easy for Kyle Petty to collapse under the weight of his own grief, to lament a young life taken so early. He could have sunk into the shadows with his own pain and no one would have denied him.
But the goodness he found in other people kept pulling him back into the light. Four years after the death of his 19-year-old son, Adam, Kyle Petty's personal journey of grieving and honoring a life ended so young finally finds a crossroads with the opening Sunday of Victory Junction Gang Camp.
Adam would have loved this.
"I hope all of these kids have an Adam Petty smile when they leave," Petty said. "And then you'll know that the camp's working."
The idea for Victory Junction was born with Adam Petty, who represented the fourth generation of a legendary racing family, but it did not die with him. Devoted to children's charities, the affable budding star had contracted to purchase land for a 200-acre camp for chronically ill children the same week he was killed during a Busch Series practice at New Hampshire International Speedway on May 12, 2000. His grandparents, Richard and Lynda, later donated 75 acres near Randleman, N.C., to continue a dream his parents, Kyle and Pattie have made the focal point of their sizable charitable efforts. The Pettys began assembling a coalition of contractors, health care experts and financiers four years ago, and the resulting $28-million to $30-million facility will welcome its first group of about 60 kids with hemophilia and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis on Sunday.
The camp will accommodate about 125 children in each of eight summer sessions, each lasting six days. Though the roughly 300,000 with terminal or life-threatening illnesses in Eastern Tennessee, the Carolinas and Virginia make up the target group, any child age 7 to 15 is eligible to apply.
The plan for the camp came together as Petty wanted: a NASCAR-themed haven where every child, no matter the ailment, will be offered the exact same experiences in sports, arts and crafts and recreation. Their medical needs will be attended by an on-site medical staff. In keeping with Adam's wishes, they won't pay a dime.
"My father and the guys at the shop and the marketing people, I don't think they had a clue how big this thing was going to be because our plans were that grandiose," Petty said.
Though similar camps exist in the Carolinas and in Eustis with Boggy Creek, this endeavor was bigger, broader and extremely expensive.
The wonderland of multicolored buildings is designed to not only add a magic feel, but allow campers a sense of sameness. Every activity has been modified to accommodate every group.
No one, Petty said, will have to be told an activity is not suitable for them.
"Although they have tons of personality, when they're around regular kids, or what they consider regular kids, they have very low self-esteem because they think they're different because they're fighting a disease," he said. "A lot of these kids go to school and never get chosen for sports, never play sports, can't shoot basketball, can't play volleyball, can't do certain things. So when they come to camp, the gym, for them, every one of them is Michael Jordan. They're like the other kids at school. They can do this."
The camp medical center is called the Body Shop, with a checkered floor and instruments hidden in big red tool boxes. There's a 186-seat theater, a Fab Shop beauty salon, a gigantic motorcycle in the massive swimming pool.
At the opening ceremony this week, the scope of the finished project was enough to stun a racing community not impressed easily.
Driver Jeff Gordon, whose foundation helped fund one of the cabins, called the facility "amazing."
Adam's younger sister, Montgomery Lee, called it perfect.
"I know how important it was to Adam to have the best of the best," she said during the open ceremony. "And now he does."
Petty's NASCAR connections gleaned millions for the camp - Tony Stewart pledged $1-million over five years - and scores of other drivers have tapped their foundations or donated purses, which in turn led to an outpouring from fans.
"(Nextel Cup driver) Kevin (Harvick) runs a truck at Bristol and says he's going to give his winnings to the camp," Petty said. "He wins $15,000-20,000, but his fans donate another $35-40,000. We've had big chunks of money come from corporate, steady, to get this built but the part that's come about, we've had 15,000 different donors. ". . . We don't want our fundraising part to get to a point where it's all corporate, because once it gets to all corporate, it's no fun anymore. We want the guy sitting in the fourth row to think he helped send a kid to camp this year."
The public response has overwhelmed the Petty family. A woman from Austria knits quilts and mails them to Victory Junction for campers to take home as gifts. So do scores of local sewing circles at local assisted-living facilities. In a thick fold of donated checks in Petty's wallet were three from a Baltimore family that contributes $4,500 yearly from an endowment set up in the name of their late parents. Absolute strangers extend a hand for Petty to shake, leaving a roll of bills in his hand.
"Give me a card so I can send you some stuff," Petty will say.
"Don't want that. Don't send me anything," comes the response.
"You open it up and it's four $100 bills," Petty said. "That's a substantial amount of money from people. It's amazing that when you turn on the news all you hear is bad things, and when you do something like this all you meet is the good people, and when you look at it, the good people probably outnumber the bad people 5-1."
Such generosity made the camp possible, but more will be needed to sustain its $2-million to $3-million yearly budget. A renewed faith in people keeps Petty from worrying very much.
Though the camp is for the explicit purpose of bringing comfort and joy to ill children, Petty unabashedly admits its role in his family's healing. "Adam's Race Shop," a purple, green, red and yellow three-story structure shaped like the No. 45 car he drove is packed with memorabilia and race simulators, and serves as a daily reminder of what they lost and how his memory is being preserved.
"I'll be very self-serving here and say that was for us," he said. "It wasn't for anybody else. Adam was working with (children's charity) Starbright, and it was different when you're 40 years old and there is a 12-year-old laying there and you talk to him, than when you're an 18-year-old like Adam was. They've got more in common, and the way he interacted with kids was kind of cool. From a parent's standpoint it made you incredibly proud.
"The Adam part for me is a more personal thing. For me it's about how he dealt with these kids and he approached racing and loved what he was doing, that joy and that enthusiasm."
Kyle Petty's thoughts will almost certainly drift back to Randleman this Father's Day afternoon. If not for the events of that horrible day, it would probably be Adam sitting in the No. 45 Dodge at Michigan International Speedway.
"For me, I guess, you never turn it loose," Kyle Petty said. "But in the total scheme of it, your total perspective changes, so things that were once important aren't important."
Maybe a team that has struggled the past few years would be among NASCAR's best with a vibrant young driver behind the wheel. That really doesn't seem to be a concern anymore.
For certain, Adam would have continued to comfort thousands of children who could have used his attention. And as the doors swing open to Victory Junction, the Pettys have assured that part of his legacy will endure.
This isn't just about racing anymore.
"This is a bigger-picture item than running around in circles," Petty said.
This is about finding the light.
- For information on applying to be a camper at Victory Junction, check www.victoryjunction.org/vj/index/howtoapply Also, victoryjunction.org offers information on how to donate.