Dave Comeau Inspired to Capture First DARE Stock Victory at Stafford to Raise Money for Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance
Stafford Springs, CT — For Stafford Speedway DARE Stock rookie Dave Comeau, the 2013 season has been a season of inspired driving. Comeau’s stepdaughter Hannah has Tuberous Sclerosis, which is a rare genetic disorder that causes tumors to form in various organs, primarily the brain, eyes, heart, skin, kidneys, liver and lungs. People with Tuberous Sclerosis often develop epilepsy, autism and learning and behavioral problems and at least two children born each day will have this disease. There is currently no cure for Tuberous Sclerosis. After shopping his car around to various sponsors prior to the season with no success, Comeau decided to put the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance on his car to help raise awareness for Tuberous Sclerosis and collect donations throughout the season, including his 2013 race winnings.
“It’s been a great season using the car to promote and raise money for the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance,” said Comeau. “When I first got the car, I searched around for some sponsorship and with me being a new driver and with the economy not being all that great, I was pretty much told no by everyone I talked to. So I thought why not put Hannah’s charity on the car. I gave them a call and they thought that was a great idea. They sent me some proofs for their logo to put on the car and we built a website and we linked everything together. A lot of people who have seen the car think I have Under Armour as a sponsor because the logos are similar. I just tell people about the website and they can go there and check it out. Right now we’re at about $2,000 raised and my company, Environmental Chemical Corporation, said they’ll match whatever donations I get from people that I work with. ECC is a world-wide company and I sent out a company wide email and I’ve gotten donations from Colorado and all over the states from people who read the email and liked it. For everyone who has donated, I try to do something special for them to show how thankful we are. We take a picture with the person’s name and we edit it into my GoPro race videos and we tell people their video is online. We have a plaque in the car that we change with people’s name on it and if a person is local I’ll give them an 8×10 picture with a thank you on the back and my hero card. The website is racing4hannah.com and there is a donation link where you can donate whatever you like, even if it’s only $1. Any time I’m having a bad day or something happens, I just think about what Hannah goes through every day and all of a sudden my problems are meaningless.”
Although Comeau had never raced before, his rookie season has been a huge success on the track. In 15 races this year, Comeau has 7 top-5 and 12 top-10 finishes and he is currently fourth in the DARE Stock point standings, only 30 points behind leader Dave Secore. Comeau says that he has surprised himself with how well he has run this year and if not for some mechanical failures, he could be leading the points standings heading into the final month of the 2013 season.
“I’ve already checked all the boxes on my list of things I wanted to accomplish this year,” said Comeau. “I can’t thank Barry Fluckiger, Don Wood, Ernie Whidden, and Kris Fluckiger and his crew enough for all their support. I wouldn’t be where I am now without their help. We’ve had three races this year where we’ve had mechanical issues and if we had been able to get just a 10th place finish in each of those three races, we might be the frontrunner in the championship right now. We’ve had four podium finishes this year and it’s been an unbelievable season. The car has been great and I’ve met so many great people. Other teams have seen me working on my car by myself and they’ve offered help, which has been really phenomenal. I’ve surprised myself a lot. The first few races I didn’t even try to win I just wanted to stay out there and finish races. I wanted to gain respect from my fellow competitors and I went out and just raced my own race. A lot of times I had a fast car but I didn’t push the issue because I wanted to be sure that I had car control before I started racing people. I didn’t want to get underneath someone and not be able to control the car. Now I feel ready to race and everything has been about getting experience since I’ve never done this before. We had the 3 races with mechanical troubles and my worst finish that we’ve been running at the end of the race has been 9th which was last week. I’ve never crunched the numbers on anything I just go out and race every week. I’m content with where we’ve been finishing and I don’t try to push any issues. Everyone has been making jokes with me about my car how it doesn’t have any dents or scratches on it and I need to be more aggressive and get in there.”
One thing that Comeau is lacking this season is a feature victory. With only three races left before the curtain comes down on the 2013 season, Comeau is ready to ramp his efforts up in order to reach victory lane and be able to dedicate his very first feature win to Hannah.
“I’d love to win a race this year,” said Comeau. “The way we’ve been going everyone has told me that I’d get a win this year, but now we only have three races left. I want to win a race so bad because I want to dedicate my first win to Hannah. Just to be able to announce that over the P.A. would be great. Hannah sees the car in the garage at home and my fiancé Mary has brought her to the track several times this year and she waves at the car every time I complete a lap. When she’s at home, Hannah will line up her Barbie dolls in a row and she’ll take a matchbox car and push it back and forth in front of them like it’s a race. But if we don’t win a race this year, we’ll try to win Rookie of the Year so we can dedicate that to Hannah. I’m really excited to be in the running to win the very first DARE Stock Rookie of the Year award presented by R.A.D. Automachine, it’s a great honor. My father passed away two weeks before the Sizzler this year and I remember my Dad always had a St. Christopher pin in his car when we would go on road trips. I took the pin out of his car and put it on the rollbar of the race car so he’s riding with me every Friday night and I’d like to get a win for him as well as Hannah.”
To find out more information about Comeau’s fundraising or to make an online donation, please visit www.racing4hannah.com.
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