BY SPENCER CAMPBELL
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
BRISTOL, Tenn. – Wessa Miller gave Dale Earnhardt a penny. He reciprocated with a van.
Both presents worked out pretty well for their respective parties. And although Earnhardt died in 2001, NASCAR is doing its best to take care of his lucky charm.
In 1998, the Make a Wish Foundation arranged a meeting between the NASCAR legend and the then six-year-old Miller at that year’s Daytona 500.
What happened next quickly became NASCAR lore: With Miller’s lucky penny glued to the dash of his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, Earnhardt won his first Daytona 500 on his 20th try.
While Miller’s present made for a compelling storyline, Earnhardt’s gift changed Miller’s life.
Diagnosed with spina bifida at a young age, Miller has had to use a wheelchair for much of her life. Two months after winning Daytona, Earnhardt surprised the Miller family at Bristol Motor Speedway with a new Astro Van.
For 11 years, that van has transported the Millers to Wanessa’s regular doctor visits in Lexington, Ky., some 175 miles from the family’s hometown of Phyllis, Ky.
“We had to take the middle seat out so we could put the wheelchair in,” Juanita Miller, Wessa’s mother, said. “If it hadn’t of been for that, we’d of had to try and purchase one, and Dale gave it to her. But it’s about to wear out, because we’ve been doing a lot of visiting to the doctors in it.”
To make matters worse, Wessa’s father, Booker Miller, was forced to undergo heart surgery a few years ago.
And so more than a decade after that legendary Daytona win, NASCAR is again banding together to assist the Miller family.
In a visit made possible by the TV program “NASCAR Angels” along with the NASCAR Foundation, Motor Racing Outreach (MRO) and The Pennies for Wessa Fund, the Miller clan returned to BMS on Saturday.
During the weekend, Wessa will be honored before the Food City 500 and will meet with Dale Earnhardt Jr.
But the Miller’s real highlight was announced at a Saturday press conference.
Standing next to a dais that included Rusty Wallace, Richard Childress and David Poole (NASCAR beat writer for the Charlotte Observer and founder of The Pennies for Wessa Fund), the Millers were inundated with charity donations.
Childress said that RCR would give 10,000 pennies, or $1,000, to the Fund, Wallace promised $5,000 of his winnings in the Saturday Night Special to Wessa, while Goodyear/Gemini donated a set of tires and a tune-up for the 11-year-old Astro Van.
Additionally, the NASCAR Foundation, “NASCAR Angels” and MRO are currently holding an online auction of racing gear at NASCAR.com/foundation to benefit the Fund. The auction will last until March 27.
“We all have good days and bad days,” Poole said. “But what [the Miller family] would count as a good day, most of us would say, ‘You can’t believe the day I just had.’
“They look at everyday they have together as a gift, and I think if all of us thought that way about our days we’d be much better off.”
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