A few months back we came up with the idea of interviewing NASCAR fans with handicaps or other impairments, and placing the articles about them on this website. Not for the purpose of making a spectacle of them, but to give them a chance to be in the spotlight, and to share their hopes and dreams. Also, to give them a chance to bring awareness to any organizations or groups that may have helped them (which may ultimately help someone else). We have had a few responses, are we are deeply appreciative of the folks who shared their lives with us.

Up until this point we have had a questionnaire available for people to fill out, and the articles would be based on the answers provided by the respondent. However, we were contacted with the following email, and were touched by it. We gladly share it with our readers, as we think its message stands on its own:

My son is Autistic and a HUGE Nascar fan. Although I’m not comfortable having private/personal info about him posted on a website (thus the reason I didn’t fill out the Q&A form), I did want to share a brief bit of info. He was diagnosed around age 3. He had been normal on all levels of development prior to age 2, then over a 6 month time span after getting his 2 year immunizations he did a complete regression (over that 6 mo. time frame) to a less than 1 year old status. He lost all speech skills, etc. He re-developed his speech thanks to Nascar. He knew all of the driver’s names, sponsors, etc. and could say them all before he was able to re-learn simple words like “ball” or “mommy”. Thanks to the efforts of many friends and co-workers, we have been able to take him to several races and give him the chance to meet many of the drivers for autographs. Last summer, he was able to meet his hero and favorite Nascar driver. Good luck to you and your son, and God bless you for what you are doing with this site!

Thanks again to this anonymous writer. If there are any other NASCAR fans out there that would like to fill out the questionnaire, you are welcome to do so. Or if you prefer, you can just do what this family member did, and describe life with their special family member; then send it on to specialfamily@cawsnjaws.com.

God Bless all the special folks out there. We love you all.