BECKMAN VISITS SHRINERS HOSPITAL

Written by Bill Walters
Thursday, 20 December 2007
Jack Beckman, driver of the Mail Terminal Services Dodge Charger R/T Funny Car
for Don Schumacher Racing in the 2007 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series,
made a special appearance at the Los Angeles Shriners Hospital for Children
on Friday, Dec. 21, 2007,on behalf of the Racers Who Care program.

Beckman, of North Hills, Calif., finished fifth in the 2007 NHRA Funny Car
standings with back-to-back national-event victories during the season.
He has also won four championships and over 50 events at the NHRA Sportsman level
during his drag-racing career. But his racing accomplishments are overshadowed
by the fact that he is a survivor of lymphoma, a form of cancer which he
successfully battled and overcame in 2004 after enduring six months of
chemotherapy.
The 41-year-old father and husband visited the top-notch Shriners
Hospital in Los Angeles in an effort to provide companionship, inspiration and a
distraction to the children who are in the same situation he was in not long ago.
Beckman has visited similar facilities in the past in an effort to show his love and
caring to those who are facing the same situation and challenges that he has
experienced.
"There are some people out there with some serious health issues," said
Beckman, "and there are people out there, for whatever reason, who tend to
suffer more than the average person. I don't think that I'm necessarily a better
human being since the cancer. I just think it's opened my eyes up and I'm a lot
more enlightened than I was before.
"I realize that I'm never going to be Mother Teresa," Beckman explained, "but
there were a lot of people who were very beneficial and inspirational to me when
I was going through the cancer and to be able to be in that position for
somebody else can be very humbling."
Ironically, it was a drag-racing fan whose family member had cancer who alerted
Beckman to the situation and he went to visit them. That visit increased his
awareness of the issue and helped him realize he could become an ambassador
to the sport by starting a tour and making visits to help the morale of patients,
telling them that their illness is not necessarily the end of the world.
Soon after, the Racers Who Care program contacted him about visiting other
facilities and it has become a major part of Beckman's schedule in between
racing.
"It's not a huge effort on my behalf but it might be a huge impact on somebody
else's life," Beckman said.
The L.A. area presentations are part of a community outreach of Racers
Who Care's National Child's Day Celebration planned for next summer in Santa
Monica. More information is available at www.nationalchildsday.com
PHOTO GALLERY TEAM TORCO www.competitionplus.com/