Its a cool morning in the desert, at the M.O.R.E. Mojave Off-Road Racing Breast Cancer Race, Barstow. I’m in my bright red and white racing suit, helmet on, slipping into our A-Arm car Class 1300, air is coming in to my helmet, someone is strapping me in, so many buckles. My oldest daughter calmly and confidently sitting next to me as co-pilot as she starts up the GPS Navigation System, my navigator for the next 250 miles of some of the roughest places to race with ruts, whoops, steep descents and hairpin turns. This is the race car my husband and son race in, not me…
I turn the key and the Porsche 2.3L engine roars, I smell the racing fuel as my adrenaline kicks into high gear. My left foot finds the clutch but starts to shake uncontrollably as I attempt to force my mind to control my limbs. Race time is only minutes away. Focus…
Remember what Tony taught you I kept thinking, look ahead out in front and then back again, slow into the curve, accelerate out, shift down…
Countdown 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 The huge flag drops -Go!
Pedal down, engine jumps into gear with a deafening sound, my daughter starts relaying navigation instructions…
Already hard to see, dust everywhere from all of the other cars, we hit a couple of ruts hard and realize my shoulder strap isn’t buckled. We realize we can’t keep going unless we get it fixed. I look for a spot to get off and someone to help us. Luckily we found a pit close by with a willing racing team to help fix my harness.
We go on to navigate the entire 250 mile course and make it back without breaking anything or us. Half way through the race at our own pit stop I vividly remember someone yelling out, “Hey! I can take over for you if its too much for you!” I responded immediately “No thanks” Then pushed my foot to the floor and thought “Hell no!” Not now, not ever! I had precious cargo, and no way would I let someone else drive my daughter to finish this course! I was going to do this and cross that finish line with my daughter. While I don’t remember how long it took us to get to the finish, I do remember settling into the adrenaline, lap by lap, staying present, filtering out all of the distractions and getting to the finish line as a team.
Mind over matter. Keep going. Lemonade life is so much what I found on the course that day. It took our amazing race team; my husband, son, our youngest daughter and friends to support us and the car that day. It took people we didn’t know on the course that jumped in and fixed my harness when it popped off. It took my daughter and I as a team to successfully navigate that course, something we had never done before. It took a leap of faith.
My lemonade company has tested me so many times, wobbling legs for my first speaking opportunity, my ‘safety harnesses’ have popped off product shortages, running out of money and so many other things. But every time we have a dedicated team of people there to support us, keep us moving forward, people we know and don’t know always there encouraging us. We’ve got the GPS Navigation System up and running again on our Lemonade Company and have made great strides since last week. We are still on track and look forward to 2024 our 13th year in business to see where the road takes us next.
Thank you for being along for the ride – We are here to serve you the most delicious lemonades for you to sip and share.
Lori Volk, Chief Believer
Lori’s Original Lemonade
est 2011
