Joy ready to go on fund-raising drive

Buy photos » Joy Rainey is set to warm up for her epic American journey this weekend. (s)

A FOMER motor racing champion from Evesham is gearing up for the challenge of a lifetime as she prepares to drive a 109-year-old veteran car across America in memory of her husband.

Joy Rainey was planning to make the 2,820 mile trip with husband Trevor Hulks before he fell ill with prostate cancer. Unfortunately Trevor’s cancer spread and he died in October 2009.

Now Joy is determined to make the trip by herself to raise more than £20,000 for Cancer Research UK in honour of Trevor. The money will be channelled into a project looking at what can be done to stop the spread of cancer through the body.

Joy - a racing driver of restricted growth - has already proved that size doesn’t matter in the world of motor sport. In the eighties and nineties she scooped scores of hill-climb titles and speed records.

Joy will set off on her next epic journey from Los Angeles to Florida in April next year in a 1904 Curved Dash Oldsmobile.

But first she plans to complete the world’s oldest motoring event – the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run – on Sunday (November 4). The event marks the first leg of a massive fund-raising drive which will see Joy tour the country with her 109-year-old companion to raise money for life saving research into cancer.

The ‘horseless carriage’ has been specially adapted for Joy and will cover a total of 2,826 miles in four weeks across 6,400ft mountains and blisteringly hot deserts.

"Trevor had always wanted to go to America so, after I bought the car in 2006, I found out the Oldsmobile was the third vehicle to successfully cross the United States from San Francisco to New York in 1903," Joy said.

"That’s when I suggested we take the car over there and try to re-create that epic journey. Trevor was up for the challenge straight away."

Difficulties with the original route now being a motorway meant that Joy had to re-think the plan but an invitation to visit the city of Oldsmar in Florida soon resolved the situation.

"Oldsmar was founded in 1913 by Ransom E Olds, the creator of the Olds Motor Works manufacturers of Oldsmobile vehicles so it seemed appropriate to plan a new route from coast to coast," she added.

"The car can reach up to 25mph but it will be walking pace up the mountains. I’m very excited about it, in fact I’d go tomorrow if I could but there’s still a lot of preparation work and fundraising to be done.

"Trevor’s cancer spread very quickly through his body so I felt passionately about raising funds for research into metastasis."

To find out more about Joy’s trip visit: www.joy-across-america.com

To sponsor Joy on her epic journey, visit: http://myprojects.cancerresearchuk.org/projects/basic-research-understanding-cancer-spread

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