Race for breast cancer awareness

Riders revved their engines to raise breast cancer awareness at Britt Motorsports Sunday. While some were out just to show support, others had personal reasons to ride.

“Well my wife is an eighteen year cancer survivor, breast cancer,” said supporter Richard Eisen.

For others it is an opportunity to remember, while helping other women celebrate life.

“She was so full of life, just enjoyed life, taught us how to live life, and how to live it to the fullest. So by us doing this, by us helping to be able to pay for free mammograms for women who can’t afford it, we’re helping them to live life and hopefully to live life to the fullest,” said Debbie Britt and Charlie McGee of Angie’s Amazing Race.

All the money raised will go to benefit New Hanover Regional’s mobile mammography unit. The unit serves women in five counties each month by doing screening mammograms for women with or without insurance, which makes the event even more valuable.

“This is wonderful because the Coastal Care van is totally donation supported,” Iris Baker from New Hanover Regional Medical Center said.

The race was not a traditional one. Riders needed to solve a series of clues and answer questions along the way. Though they eventually make it back, some have a tougher time than others.

Phil McGee created the route and said, “First of all you’ve got to learn how to get lost. You just start driving – you see a road, and you turn down it.”

No matter how long the ride took, supporters were happy to help all those affected by breast cancer.

“We have family that we love: wives, girlfriends, and mothers that have the potential to come down with the disease also,” McGee said.

As many of the riders found their way back to Britt Motorsports on Market Street, they all returned with happy, pink, smiling faces. It was one day that the manliest of men were proud to wear pink.

Last year the ride raised more than $16,000; enough money to pay for about ninety mammograms. This year organizers raised $20,000.