Stewart, Biffle, Compton help build playground in Charlotte

By Jared Turner - SceneDaily Staff Writer

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Sam Cranston
NASCAR Scene

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CHARLOTTE – Sprint Cup drivers Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle assembled a gym set together. Red Bull Racing crew members pieced together part of a rock -climbing wall. Craftsman Truck Series driver Stacy Compton drove nails in picnic tables and assembled a swing set.

For one day, at least, members of the NASCAR community put aside their competitive differences on Wednesday and become cohorts in a common cause: to build a racing-themed playground for residents of Elon Homes for Children, a Charlotte, N.C.-based agency for youths with special needs.

“All kids need playgrounds,” said Biffle, who was joined by a fellow Roush Fenway Racing driver, Craftsman Truck Series rookie Colin Braun. “We all had a chance to go and play when we were growing up to have these things. Some kids - you don’t think about it - but some kids don’t have that opportunity, and it feels great to create that opportunity for some kids.

“And the thing about this playground is it’s for these kids today, but it’s going to be for lots of kids in the future. It’s going to serve its purpose for a long time to come. And for everybody involved to come out here and do this is great.”

Several hundred volunteers - most of them clad in orange "Team Depot" shirts - helped with the project, an offshoot of The Home Depot’s Racing to Play program. Racing to Play is an initiative focused on making a positive impact on at-risk children who live in the surrounding communities of NASCAR tracks, and a partnership between The Home Depot, Joe Gibbs Racing and KaBOOM!, a national non-profit organization that seeks to give children a safe place to play near their homes.

Racing to Play, which originated in 2005, oversaw the construction of 10 racing-themed playgrounds across the United States in 2007.

“I have done a little bit of everything at one time or another at these,” said Stewart, whose Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota is sponsored by Home Depot in the Sprint Cup Series. “I’ve mixed concrete. I’ve thrown mulch. You name it, we’ve done it at some time or another.”

As with most Racing to Play projects, Wednesday’s was held in conjunction with race week at a nearby track – Lowe’s Motor Speedway in suburban Charlotte – where the Cup series will convene for the Sprint All-Star Race on Saturday night, followed by the Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day weekend.

“The nice thing is they’re all over race markets, so we normally get to go in early, and it makes it easy on our schedule to be able to take the time and come in and help out and know that we’re making a difference,” Stewart said.

The playground, which got its design from the drawings submitted by children at Elon Homes, is not the first Racing to Play project in the greater Charlotte area where most of NASCAR's teams are based.

Last year, volunteers built a racing-themed playground at a Concord, N.C., shelter for abused women and their children.

“Being able to help local communities makes a big difference for us,” said Red Bull Racing pit crew coach Greg Miller, who was joined at Wednesday’s event by 14 Red Bull Racing crew members and the team’s strength and conditioning coach. “We can drive by them and see them and be able to actually see the kids enjoying them throughout the year, so it’s a lot nicer closer to home, that’s for sure.”

The playground, which was to be completed by Wednesday evening, includes several rock climbing walls, monkey bars and slides.

“It is like an 'Extreme Home Makeover'-kind of environment where we set out to do this in one day and we do it in maybe six or seven hours even,” said KaBOOM! project manager Christine Feller, in reference to the popular television series in which volunteers build a new home for deserving families in less than a week.

Miller believes the final product of this initiative will be worth all the work and effort.

"Being a father of three, myself, things that deal with children have a special place for me, anyway,” he said. “Being able to see kids’ eyes light up when they’re able to come out and play on the playground, it’s pretty special. You can’t put that into words.”