NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Yearbooks make great holiday gifts! Click here to order.
A portion of each sale benefits the Bristol Chapter of Speedway Children's Charities
Bristol Speedway Children's Charities was founded in 1996 to help children in the surrounding area of Bristol Motor Speedway by Bruton Smith, Chairman of the Board of Speedway Motorsports, Inc. There is a chapter of Speedway Children's Charities at each of Speedway Motorsports' six motorsports facilities.
Operating as a non-profit foundation, Bristol Speedway Children's Charities is governed by a board of local trustees whose sole purpose is to distribute the funds raised each year to qualified local children's-based 501c-3 organizations. In that there are no paid employees of the Bristol chapter, one hundred percent of the funds raised are channeled to the agencies. Ms. Claudia H. Byrd serves as the director of Bristol Speedway Children's Charities.
The major source of funding for Bristol Speedway Children's Charities is the Speedway In Lights holiday light display held annually on the grounds of Bristol Motor Speedway and Bristol Dragway. Over 250,000 people are expected to take the 5.3-mile tour this year, which features more than two million lights and over 200 displays. WCYB-TV 5 is the major sponsor of this event. Additional fundraisers, including golf tournaments and online driver auctions, are held in conjunction with each major race weekend at the speedway.
In nine years of Bristol's Speedway Children Charities and Speedway In Lights, more than $3 million has been distributed to children's-based non-profit organizations in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia.
Grant applications are distributed throughout the year and must be submitted prior to August 1 each year. All funds are distributed in November on the opening night of Speedway In Lights For further information, contact Ms. Claudia Byrd, Director-Bristol Speedway Children's Charities, P.O. Box 3966, Bristol, TN 37625 or call (423) 764-6555.
For information on any of Bristol's Speedway Children's Charities events, please contact Barbara Kaiser at (423) 989-6975 or at barbara@bristolmotorspeedway.com
