Page 601 - Total War on PTSD

J. Alberto Fait: I heard about an event here in California and I went to it and participated. I met Zachariah Collett, who happened to serve in the same brigade that I did. We had never met before but we had a lot in common, so that made the experience super pleasant. It was more the community itself that made the difference.
VetMotorsports did a great job but the racing community as a whole welcomed us.
That is what made a real difference. I emailed Peter Cline and told him that I loved the mission of the organization and that I was interested in trying to help make more VetMotorsports events possible in California, and specifically in the Bay area. It took about three to four months of phone tag until we finally had a sit-down conversation, and when we did, Peter invited me to go to Texas to help run an event there. After that we were up and running in California. We successfully ran three events in 2018 and have more planned for 2019.
Once the first event got started we were very much welcomed. There were no stupid questions. We could talk to the other drivers. Everyone was appreciative about what we, as an organization, had done in the past so there was an open door. Some of the drivers even volunteered to give us a ride in their cars and talked about their cars with the Veteran participants. I grew up drag racing...not legally...and in that community people don’t want to talk about their cars, they just wanted to race. Here, everybody was welcoming, they were giving out driving tips freely and they were offering suggestions. It was a very different environment. Zach definitely made the event great. He was constantly taking care of us, making sure we were okay, making sure we were having fun and making sure we stayed hydrated.
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