KTMtalk.com And Minidads.com Support Nick DePalo And Chase Borders
The board administrators of KTM Talk and Minidads.com joined forces yesterday to help send Nick DePalo to the Atlanta Supercross. Nick, as you may have known by the article in Racer X or on any motocross message board in the free world suffered a catastrophic injury at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Gainesville, Florida.
Nick came home on February 9, 2007 and the members of both forums got together and raised enough funds to bring Nick and his father to Atlanta for an extended weekend and have them attend the Atlanta Supercross.
Handicapped accessible ground transportation for the weekend has been arranged by Tammy Meadows of MotoSports Honda of Canton, GA. However, something fell through with the air transportation as the owner of a private plane who verbally committed to bring Nick and his father had to cancel when it was noticed the craft required immediate service during a post-flight inspection and would not be ready before February 25.
The owner of Minidads.com heard about this and turned to the members of his board for help and asked Pat Forbes, owner of KTM Talk for his help as well. Pat readily agreed and we were hopeful that by Monday there will be enough to bring Nick to Atlanta.
The initial effort was to raise $620.00, the cost of two airline
tickets but within 24 hours, the members wanted to keep giving to Nick and raised in excess of $1000.00. The overage of funds will go directly to Nick to use during his stay.
Chase Borders has also been given medical clearance to attend the Supercross as well. Which, if you followed the saga of Chase you know how huge of a step that is. A quick call to Denny Hartwig of Live Nation got Nick set up with press box seats for Chase, his dad and the three nurses that are required to accompany him.
Both myself and Pat Forbes would like to thank each and every member who donated for this cause. This wasn't about home renovations or van conversion, while those are very important, it was about giving Nick and Chase a tangible gift, something only for them. We have an amazing motocross community out there and they never cease to amaze me.
Nick is going to be staying with us for five days, and we have a pretty big weekend planned. I am very excited.
If there are any industry members who want to makes Nick and Chases'trip more enjoyable at the Supercross, please contact Tammy Meadows at lfuel@aol.com.
Regards,
Matt Griffith
For more information about Nick DePalo and Chase Borders please visit:
www.nickdepalo.com
Special thanks go out to:
All of the members who donated, especially the more than generous contributions of Mike Burkeen and Eric from K100, Anita from Road 2 Recovery, Ricky Patterson of Freewheeling Honda/Suziki, The Rider Down Foundation, Kevin Kelly and DMXS Radio, Deny Hartwig of Live Nation, Alex Manga of Manga Racing Schools, Sel from KTM North America, Davd
Vuillemin and MDK Motorsports, Dan Martin of Capitol Cycle for tickets for two of Nicks friends who will be driving up for the event. And last but not least, Pat Forbes of KTM Talk.