KELLY RENAE SUTTON - 09/24/1971
In 2003 Kelly 'Girl' Sutton make her debut in NASCAR. Sutton began racing at the age of 10 before her career was halted due to her diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis at the age of sixteen. She resumed racing in 1992 at Old Dominion Speedway, driving in the Pro Mini Stock Series. During her first year of competition, Sutton won the Hard Charger and Sportsmanship awards. During her three years competing in the series, she won seven feature races and won the Most Popular Driver award all three years. Sutton would not race again until 1997 in the Allison Pennsylvania Legacy Series. She won two feature races and the Most Popular Driver Award. The next year, she competed in the Parts Pro Truck Series, where she won one qualifying race and the Oral B Close Brush Award. (Parts Pro Truck Series is where I was an official for several years). Sutton made her NASCAR Truck Series debut in 2003 at Memphis Motorsports Park, where she started 34th and finished 27th after suffering early transmission
failure. She ran three more races that year, her best finish being a 19th at the season-ending Ford 200. She made her first full-time bid for the championship in 2004, with sponsorship from Copaxone. Sutton worked her way up to the NASCAR Truck Series, and had her best start in 2004 at Las Vegas starting 14th. She finished 15th in Charlotte for her best career finish. She would race for five seasons and start 54 races. Kelly was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and was the only person to race with that disease, until Trevor Bayne was also diagnosed with it in 2013. What makes this a 'feel good' story is that throughout her career her sponsor was "Team Copaxone". Copaxone is made by Teva Pharmaceuticals, and they sponsored the race vehicle
Truck Series - 2005 Mansfield Speedway
Final truck start
every season she raced. In 2013, Sutton was riding on the back of her friends motorcycle when he hit a curb and crashed. He was killed and Sutton received massive injuries. After two weeks on life support and three months in the hospital, Sutton again defied the odds and last heard is currently doing well and is on a slow steady path to recovery. Some info from Wikipedia
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