Race to raise awareness for organ donations

ALEXANDRIA, VA—On May 3, a female kidney transplant recipient and her co-driver Elaine Kent, a friend for 40 years, will don helmets, climb into their tricked-out racing machine and join 110 other driving teams as they compete in the 20th Annual Michelin One Lap of America, presented by Car and Driver Magazine (onelapofamerica.com).

While not truly a coast-to-coast race, the cars travel from city to city for seven days, competing on race tracks throughout the country, such as Indianapolis Raceway and Road Atlanta. This year’s route begins at a technical inspection at Painted Post, NY, and, after a 4,000 mile jaunt around the US, it ends back at Painted Post on May 9.

From Alexandria, Linda Cheatham and Elaine Kent, from Columbia, MO, will be racing a 1997 Porsche Boxster, donating all fund-raising proceeds to a nonprofit organization that promotes organ transplant awareness: Transplant Recipients International Organization (www.trioweb.org).

“This is the tenth year we’ve participated,” Cheatham, a 1990 kidney transplant recipient, said. “Since I am one of 10 family members who have been transplant recipients, it is our way of expressing our deep gratitude for our life-saving gifts. It’s our way of demonstrating that transplantation really does work.”

Besides Cheatham, the other family members who have received transplants include her mother, both sisters, her brother, an aunt and four cousins. The family shares a hereditary disease — polycystic kidney/liver disease, which affects more than 600,000 Americans. Approximately one half of those individuals will suffer kidney failure; it is the second leading cause of kidney tranplants. (www.pkdcure.org)

Elaine Kent is a tissue recipent, having received an ACL (ligament) transplant in June 2002.