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Tommy Johnson Jr. is the driver of the Make-a-Wish car in the NHRA drag racing season and has always been involved in helping kids. He is now helping with the children’s museum for a Hot Wheels exhibit currently being performed and joins the show to talk to Big Joe and Kevin Bowen who is filling in for Jeff Rickard about his current drag racing season and the help he has been doing with Riley Children’s Hospital and his involvement in Make-A-Wish.
What are you doing at the children’s museum today?
“Yeah, we’re going to the children’s museum and gonna do a little Hot Wheels racing. It’s gonna be with the Riley kids, have a bunch of kids from Riley Children’s Hospital coming down and do some Hot Wheels racing, I hope I don’t get beat.”
How is your racing team on their involvement with their Make-A-Wish foundation sponsorship?
“Yeah, our team is such a different team when it comes to sponsorship on a racing circuit. We represent Make-A-Wish all season long and it’s branded Make-A-Wish and they pay absolutely nothing. Then when we run kind of our hometown race, it’s based here in Brownsburg, Indiana, we run a Riley Children’s Hospital car for the weekend. It’s just to let everybody know all the great things they are doing for the kids that are going through tough times. Running a Make-A-Wish Car and a Riley Children’s Hospital Car is just so different. Those two organizations pay absolutely nothing, it’s all free and done by the Chandler Family. They fund the team and give that space away to raise awareness for great causes. It’s a really cool deal, Don Schumacher Racing has been a really big supporter and that’s the charity of choice for Don Schumacher Racing. So many events over the years and we’ve raised over $600,000 for Riley and we’ve got another open house coming up on August 31th before the U.S. Nationals which is probably the biggest drag race in the world. We hold it at our shop, the fans can come and check out the facility and we have great car show as well as a silent auction. All kinds of fun things to do, but its been a great event and grown bigger every single year. I’m looking forward to it.”
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