The older I get, the better I was… Follow up information about Ron LaPeer

The miracle I want to tell you about is tied to a devotional I wrote for the Racers For Christ (RFC) web site. http://www.teamrfc.org/devotions10/D022210.shtml

This devotional was written late in 2009 and appeared in February of 2010 on their web site. The devotional mentions a man that taught me all I knew about competition driving in the late 1960′s. Ron LaPeer had won an SCCA National Championship, driven one of the powerful Genie Mk10 Chevrolet CanAm cars of the era, drove for the Datsun Factory Team and was certainly on his way to a very successful professional racing career. I met Ron through the Bondurant Driving School where he was the chief instructor. When Ron passed away in a racing accident at age 26, I recall this greatly impacting my life. Although I knew him for only a short time this was an incident that, in part, steered me into fulltime Christian work. I was about 20 or so at the time and I was a relatively new Christian when these events happened. I attended Arizona State University and came to faith in Christ by the testimony of two students. This conversion experience for me probably happened about a year before I went to Bondurant and met Ron. The impact of Ron’s passing made me examine my own life, its priorities and really deal with the brevity of life.

Shortly after this time I decided to enter full time Christian work with Campus Crusade for Christ and that was what I did for the next 8 years. That was how I ended up moving to California, meeting my wonderful wife Sue and we now have 2 children and 5 grandchildren. Sue and I will have been married for 36 years later this year. We are active in our local church (Pathway Christian Church) and I write devotionals for my church, Racers For Christ, The Upper Room and other publications and groups. Somehow in God’s great plan, although Ron’s life crossed mine for a short period of time, it had a huge down-line domino effect. Ron’s passing has been a part of my testimony for many years, not just in this devotional.             

Enter the events of May 2010 – A Christian woman goes to her computer and types in a search for her father who died in a car racing accident over 40 years ago in 1969 when she was only 12 years old. To add to her tragedy, her mother died just a few weeks later. In a six week period she had lost both her Dad and Mom. Something she had not seen in years was a picture of her Dad and that was an important part of her hopes and prayers for these periodic searches.  She did this Internet search a few times a year just to see if there was any new info on her Dad or a picture of him. In early May there were 2 new search results showing up that she had not seen before. One gave her information about Ron’s racing accident from an eyewitness driver and the second one was my RFC devotional that mentioned Ron’s name. She fired off e-mails to both of us in hopes she will be able to get a picture of her stepdad.

You see she had many wonderful memories of Ron, who although he was her stepdad, was really Dad to her for three years. She remembered when Ron brought home 2 carnation corsages on Valentine’s Day – a red one for mom, and a pink one for her. Another time Ron took her to a father-daughter dance and she was so thrilled and proud he was there. She remembers him winning races and her doing a victory lap seated in the back of his racing car hanging on for dear life. She would hang out in the garage by the hour while Ron worked on his racing car – until he started the loud open exhaust engine and she was frightened away. And, of course, she remembers the horrible day when a family friend showed up to announce that Ron was gone. She had so many wonderful memories but no picture of the Dad she remembered so fondly.

When I received her e-mail from RFC I did not have any pictures of Ron myself but I recalled that the Riverside Raceway Museum was collecting photos for their museum archives. Also, Clark Taylor a racing friend and one of the attendees at the Pathway Christian Cruiser Car Show at our church just a few weeks ago, had some contact names he thought would have more information. Starting at the Museum with archivist Norma Jordan and rippling across the US and around the world we began a massive search to bring that little 12 year old girl, who was now 53 years old, a picture of that face she loved so many years ago but a face that was starting to fade in her memory.

Today we just spoke on the phone and Ron’s daughter opened the first of what I’m sure will be many e-mails with many more pictures as we get more responses from around the world. The first three pictures we received are near perfect. Ron has his helmet off and his face is clearly visible. We were both in tears at the end of our phonecall.

We worship a great God that preserved and brought the pictures of a long deceased father to someone who has not seen that face for 41 years.

What a wonderful God we worship…

Richard Lewis

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