CARQUEST Champions for Charities: David Arute
Stafford Springs, CT — Stafford Motor Speedway has again lined up an impressive field of current and former open wheel champions for its CARQUEST Champions For Charities Event as part of CARQUEST Super Saturday on June 30th. During the coming weeks, SMS will offer a profile on each of its championship winning drivers and the charity they will be racing for. This week’s CARQUEST Champions For Charities spotlight falls on 2011 Wild Thing Kart Senior Outlaw Champion David Arute, who will be racing to help support The Lustgarten Foundation, which is an organization dedicated to the research of pancreatic cancer. For Arute, racing for The Lustgarten Foundation takes on a personal connection as his Uncle Bill passed away in 2010 from pancreatic cancer.
“My Uncle Bill was a fun loving guy that was always the life of our family parties,” said Arute. “It means a lot for me to be racing to raise money for Lustgarten. It was definitely a hard situation for our family to deal with and my hope is that by raising this money for The Lustgarten Foundation, we can help find a cure and other families won’t have to go through the same thing that our family went through.”
Part of Arute’s fundraising efforts for The Lustgarten Foundation was the 3rd Annual Bill Tamburro, Jr. Memorial Golf Tournament, which was held this past Monday, May 20th at Lyman Orchards Golf Club in Middlefield, CT. The tournament raised over $11,000 and has helped put Arute at the top of the CARQUEST Champions For Charities driver roster. In addition to the golf tournament, Arute will also be selling DP Motorsports tee-shirts leading up to the June 28th CARQUEST Champions For Charities race.
“The golf tournament was good,” said Arute. “There was a good turnout and the weather was nice for a change instead of raining. We had a lot of raffle prizes, which everyone seemed to enjoy. I didn’t do too well at the golf, our team finished last, but it was a lot of fun and we raised a lot of money. I did some shirts last year and I made some new DP Motorsports shirts for this year. We’re going to eventually have a second car for my brother Paul, so we’ll have my number 28 and his number 82 on the shirt along with a pancreatic cancer logo and we’re going to sell the shirts for $15 each and all proceeds will go towards The Lustgarten Foundation. We’re going to put some up at my trailer in the pits and we’ll put them on our Facebook and Twitter pages. A lot of my friends from school already said they want a shirt and we’re hoping we can get a good response from Facebook and Twitter.”
When it comes to the CARQUEST Champions For Charities feature on Friday, June 28th, Arute will have a bit of an advantage over the rest of the competition with his previous experience in the Wild Thing Karts. But even with his experience to lean on, Arute is cautious when assessing his chances of winning the race.
“I ran pretty well last year, but we ran the kart once this year on Monday night and it wasn’t too good,” said Arute. “But my brother Paul is going to take the kart out a few times and dust the cobwebs off of the kart and get the kart running good again. Hopefully we can be a contender like we were last year and I’d really like to win the race. I have a lot more experience than everyone else, but I was really surprised last year how many people were running quick for never running a kart before. But they’re all champion racers and they figured the line out real quickly. Second last year was good but we’d like to make it one spot better this year.”
The starting lineups for the CARQUEST Champions For Charities 15-lap feature will be determined by how much money each driver raises for their selected charity. The starting grid will be set with the drivers who have raised the most money starting up front. Fans are encouraged to get involved in the event by donating to their favorite driver or favorite charity. To make a donation to The Lustgarten Foundation on behalf of David Arute, and for more information on the event, please refer to the CARQUEST Champions for Charities donation page located at www.staffordspeedway.com. Stay tuned to www.staffordspeedway.com for more driver spotlights and exciting information regarding the CARQUEST Champions for Charities event, which will take place on Friday, June 28.
For more information, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at 860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com.
Sources: Scott Running/Stafford Motor Speedway PR