Kimberly Myers

THE SUNDAY TIMES * August 3, 1997
JERRY GANDY * Staff writer

Myers lived life on a short track with '65 roses'

Motor sports participants accept the risks of their profession and realize that few members of their peer group won't be around for retirement celebrations.
Fans also accept the possibilities of tragedy when they choose to identify with racers.
More devastating are the deaths away from competition, such as the aviation accidents that took the lives of Alan Kulwicki and Davey Allison.
The death of NASCAR short track racer Kimberly Myers on July 17 should not have been a surprise to her fans, but it was just as shocking as a non-racing fatality.
The 27-year-old Half Moon Bay driver lived her life in such a manner that her fans almost forgot that she was afflicted with cystic fibrosis , a fatal lung disease.
Myers kept her condition a secret during her first season of racing in 1991, when she was named street stock rookie of the year at Antioch Speedway.
I learned of her health situation in a letter from her aunt, Margaret Myers of Half Moon Bay, in 1992 and interviewed Kim in the pits at Antioch Speedway.
At that time, she had decided to let her condition be known to serve as an inspiration to other CF patients and to help promote contributions to research.
She changed her car number to 65 and added Roses beside the numerals to call attention to the disease.
Many young CF patients can't say the name of their disease and it comes out "65 roses".
Victims of CF are stricken early in life and few reach adulthood.
Myers was diagnosed two months before her 18th birthday.
Her father, John Myers, said his daughter went through a period of devastation and endured hospitalizations, surgery and painful medical procedures.
Seeing that her fellow patients were becoming overwhelmed and giving in to the disease, she made a decision not to surrender.
"She always was more interested in cars than in ballet or piano lessons," recalled her father, who remembers a Sears Point drag race providing Kim her first taste of motor sports.
John Myers came home from his computer software firm one day to find a street stock in the garage.
Kim's boyfriend, Chris Collett, bought the thoroughly used dirt track car as a gift for her. When Kim started racing at Antioch Speedway, her family realized the sport was more than a passing fancy.
Kim related during that 1992 interview that a few of her street stock rivals attempted to intimidate her, but most of the drivers didn't bang on her car more than anyone else's.
She was delighted to be accepted "as one of the boys."
Fans, especially the younger set, were delighted when they made autograph stops in her pit to find Myers more than accommodating. She always had a stack of glossy photos and happily autographed each individually for fans.
Among the pit visitors during 1991 was Scott Compton, whose daughter is a CF patient. He noticed the car's filtered air system which John Myers had devised to keep a fresh supply of moist oxygen flowing into his daughter's helmet.
When Compton realized what the Myers family was accomplishing, he became a volunteer pit crew member.
Kimberly won an open competition race at Petaluma Speedway in 1992 and notched a feature victory at Watsonville Speedway in 1993.
Those successes inspired her to move up to the late model class, and she earned rookie of the year honors in 1994.
Other groups honoring Myers were the Coastside Soroptimist Club (Woman of the Year), NASCAR (1993 Maxwell House Real Hero) and the Motor Sports Press Association (1994 Person of the Year).
Those awards were in recognition for her public service work.
She made visits to hospitals, schools and specialized summer camps.
Myers appeared in several motivational videos and on television shows. One of the videos was filmed with Boomer Esiason, the NFL quarterback whose son has CF.
Ten days before her death, she received a letter from a 10-year-old who wrote, "You were more than a hero to me. Because of you, I can do anything."
Always optimistic, Kim predicted during our interview that there would be a CF cure in "a few years."
"I just have to live that long," she said.
Research didn't win the race for her.

Commentary:

I first saw Kimberly drive back in 1991, when she was beginning her rookie year at Antioch Speedway in California. She showed an amazing skill with a race car from the very outset. I went to her pit to offer a word of encouragement after the races, volunteered to help, and played mechanic for her ever since. That meant Saturdays and Sundays during the 6 month race season, and most weekends re-building the car during the "off" season. Not surprisingly, Kim quickly became an "adopted neice" (or I an "adopted uncle").

Kimberly won "Rookie of the Year" honors that first year, the first of many, many awards to come. She devoted much of her off-track time to visiting schools, hospitals and children's groups with motivational presentations, and anti-drug messages. At the racetrack she always made time to autograph photos for the kids (young and old) and let the children climb into her race car and sit behind the wheel.