Cardington native Reece White was back in Morrow County in mid-May as part of Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course’s IMSA WeatherTeck SportsCar Championship.
White works with Hardpoint Motorsports and its car that ran in the Mid-Ohio 120 race that ran in support of the IMSA WeatherTech race during the May 13-15 event. Sponsoring the car is Racing to End Alzheimer’s — a charity that White takes personally, as his grandmother, Pat Ebert, has the disease.
“With my grandmother here at Morrow Manor (in Chesterville) with Alzheimer’s, it’s neat to be able to be part of it on a personal level and not just work.”
Through the foundation, people are able to place a loved one’s name on the Hardpoint car for the season — as White did for Ebert.
White noted that Racing to End Alzheimer’s founder Philip Frengs was interested in working with Hardpoint.
“Those guys came to us and wanted to be with our car,” he said. “The guy who started the foundation, Philip Frengs — his wife has early-onset Alzheimer’s. He owns a company and is involved with racing as a sponsor. We use the sponsorship money to put Racing to End Alzheimer’s on the car and raise some money.”
White noted that the charity has raised over $500,000 over its six years, with this being the first it has been aligned with Hardpoint.
“Philip’s company matches donations, so that’s neat,” he said. “We just try to spread the word through the motorsports platform.”
And White is very willing to spread that word.
“It’s a really personal thing with what we have going on,” he said. “It’s neat to do our little bit to help out. It becomes a little bit of a community around the car. I love my job and being part of motorsports. It’s also nice to do something important in the grand scheme of things and not just fun.”
Coming back to Mid-Ohio with the Hardpoint car also was a nice experience for White. Not only is the race track in his home county, but it also served as his first job in the motorsports industry.
“It’s nice to come back,” he said. “My first motorsports job was here. It’s fun to still be part of the sports world as a living.”
In the race held that weekend, the Hardpoint car finished 33rd out of 40 total competitors.
In the main event of the weekend, the Lexus Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio, the overall winner and winner of the DPi class was the car of Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque. The LMP2 winner (seventh overall) was driven by Juan Pablo Montoya and Henrik Hedman. Winning the LMP3 class (13th overall) was the car of Colin Braun and Jon Bennett. Finally, the GTO winner (19th overall) was driven by Robby Foley and Bill Auberlin.
