Between the Races: Sharon Foxworthy
April 19, 2006
By Laurel C. Allen
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Sharon and Stan Foxworthy are the founders and organizers of Eric Bostrom’s Racing 2 Save Lives, a four-day track event that allowed this year’s participants to tear around the brand-new and stunningly beautiful Miller Motorsports circuit—for a good cause. Riders who participated collected pledges in exchange for track time, and the funds raised went to children’s charities in the Utah and Colorado area. The Foxworthys originally started R2SL because they “wanted to do something together within the motorcycling community that would encourage even more enthusiasm for the sport,” and with the added star-power of Yamaha’s Eric Bostrom and Parts Unlimited Ducati’s Ben Bostrom, the results of the 2006 event proved they’re well on their way. We sat down with Sharon on the last day of the event to learn more.

RRX: How did Racing 2 Save Lives originally get started?
Sharon Foxworthy: Well, Racing 2 Save Lives started three years ago. Stan, myself, Tony Baker, and Ralph Forsythe all were mulling over the idea of what we could create that could be a positive give-back to our community. A couple of us were racers, all of us were motorcycle enthusiasts, and we thought, What can we do with the thing we love doing that would create a positive way to support our community and specifically help children? We had a brainstorming session, and in 13 weeks we put together our first event. The week of the event it rained, it was cold, but we still had people come out for it, and by end we had raised $21,000, which we divided up between five children’s charities. We thought, If we can do it in the rain and actually succeed and actually give money, let’s do it again.

Sharon Foxworhty with her custom-painted Racing 2 Save Lives ride. LCA photo

The first event was held at Second Creek Raceway—people in this area know it—but it was soon to be closed. I said, “I think we should try to go to Pikes Peak.” Stan, Tony, and Ralph met up with the president over there, and to our shock, he said yes. We knew it was going to be a bigger opportunity and more riders, but we didn’t expect what happened: It was a blowout; we doubled the money we were able to give.

We had just gotten the date for Pikes Peak for 2006 when they announced it was closing, too, so after a moment of shock and panic, I said, “You know, we can’t go back to a small, club racetrack—we have to go forward.” I had been reading about Miller Motorsport Park and I knew it was going to be a really cool track, so I got a letter of reference from Pikes Peak. Stan and I both have a good relationship with Freddie Spencer, who had set up his school here for the summer, and he put in a good word for us, too. A few weeks later, we got the call back—they said, “We’d love to have you.” It was so great.

That was November of 2006—we had about a week or two before the big international motorcycle show in Denver, and we managed to get Eric to come out, and he signed autographs for us for four hours to help promote the event.

How did Eric get involved with Racing 2 Save Lives?
Well, I’m only three years to this sport, and my first exposure to Eric was this race tape that my husband showed me of an AMA season, when Eric was on Kawasaki, and they ran an interview with him after he’d won a race. I was just blown away by what a gentle, humble, genuine person he was, and something in my heart said, “I have to get to know this person.” In 2003 I met him at a race at Pikes Peak, said hello to him a few other times, that sort of thing, talked to him for a while at a test one time.

Last May, we had our event a week or two before the AMA event, so we had an opportunity to meet up with him, and we were just bubbling over with enthusiasm about how successful our last event had been and we were telling him about it, and he kind of looked at me sideways and said, “You know, I’ve always wanted to be involved in something like that but it was more than I could organize. Would it be okay if I helped you guys?” He let us use his name, consulted with us on major decisions, and he was able to talk to Yamaha and Red Bull—all of his major sponsors—about the idea, and was just wholeheartedly for us. I really think he’s hopeful that we’ll be able to create the same caliber of charity that the MotoGP people are doing, and it’s exciting that Red Bull and Yamaha have both expressed a desire to participate with us very significantly in the future.

How do you feel about the success of this year’s event thus far?
Here we are, the final day, and we’ve had three incredibly successful days. We decided to give $30,000 to Larry Miller’s charity, which divides money up between several different children’s charities, and then we chose three Colorado-area charities—the Make-A-Wish Foundation; Family Pathways, which deals with severely neglected and abused kids; and Here’s Life Inner City Denver, which deals with at-risk kids coming out of bad homes. So, $10,000 went to each of those three. And we love Vincent Haskovec and wanted to continue to support him, so we donated $2,000 in his name to the Wegman Foundation and the air-fence fund. Then we gave $3,000 to the city of Tooele for being here and taking care of us, so that’s $65,000 this year. It is extremely rare for fundraising events to actually raise enough money to give to the charities they support—it usually takes three to four years to get going. We were able to give money the very first year and double the amount we’ve donated each year.

Do you think that says something special about the generosity of the motorcycle community?
Yes, absolutely. It’s extremely generous, and if you give people an exciting enough opportunity to do what they love to do, they totally go after it. We had about 350 people this year—100 more than last year.

Sharon—flanked by Eric Bostrom (right) and Vincent Haskovec—presents the results of this year's R2SL fundraising efforts. LCA photo

What are your future plans for the event?
Well, [track designer and manager] Alan Wilson told Eric that we have a standing invitation to come back to Miller Motorsports Park for as long as we want to do this event, so we’ll definitely be back here. And just yesterday, we got word that we’ve been invited to do our event at Virginia International Raceway for 2007, so we’ll be doing two events. It’s so exciting, and the word is really getting out.

Not that many people have had a chance to check the Miller Motorsports track out yet…. What do you think of the circuit itself?
Oh, man—it is incredible. We split up the track to use the two different sides of the track, and both sides have a really unique personality, and then together, it’s even more incredible. And we’ve had a very, very safe event here—no injuries, no totaled bikes, the few get-offs have just been off into the dirt—so it’s just very safe and so much fun. It’s getting rave reviews from all of our riders here.

Anything else you’d like to add?
Well, for Stan and I personally, there’s just an enormous amount of satisfaction. We’ll be exhausted when we get home, but give us a few weeks and we’ll be ramping back up. The vision is strong, the connections are coming together, people are believing in it, and it’s all from the heart. The volunteers we have working for us have dedicated hours and hours of their time and spent money out of their own pockets just to be here.... It’s just so amazing. Something like this creates such a level of joy in people that it makes them want to do other good things, too—it’s one of those things that creates ripples. Maybe it’s difficult for some people to think of motorcycling as something that profound, but people are passionate about it, so I think if we can create that and continue to replicate it in various other communities, awesome things are possible.