WASHINGTON — A young Manassas, Va., boy has taken on a mission to raise money and awareness for kids with cancer, an especially important venture since there’s very little funding for pediatric cancer research.
Only 4 percent of the National Cancer Institute’s budget goes to fighting childhood cancer.
And while “Mini” Timmy Tyrrell turns 10 on Monday, he’s been raising money for kids with cancer since he was six years old. He vows to never stop; in 2010, his friend Ella Day was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
“He saw the need and he wanted to help,” Ella Day’s mother, Karen Day, says of “Mini.” “He wanted to do anything he could do to help, [for] a six-year-old, that to me is astonishing.”
On the eve of his birthday, “Mini” has raised more than $200,000 for cancer research. Sunday, at the E.G. Smith Baseball Complex in Manassas, 400 players attended the third-annual kickball tournament to raise money for children with cancer.
Ella Day, now in sixth grade, has been cancer free for four years after enduring chemotherapy and radiation. Next June is the five-year mark; if Ella’s tests come back clean, she’ll be considered cured.
On Sunday, Ella and her kick-ball team — named “Fearless” — competed in the tournament. Like her mother, she is amazed by her friend “Mini”: “I think it’s awesome that he’s doing this stuff for me and for other kids around the country.”
Oh, “Mini” is a race car driver who’s teamed with professional driver Jeff Gordon.
Gordon is also raising money for pediatric cancer. “Mini” got to spend a full day with Gordon, which fulfilled his dream of meeting a NASCAR driver.
“Mini” started racing go-carts when he was four, competing up and down the east coast — from Daytona International Speedway to North and South Carolinas and Pennsylvania.
At age eight, “Mini” got into arena racing, which are real half-scale stock cars that run inside the Richmond Coliseum on an aluminum track.
Also, he started racing Bandolero cars on asphalt oval tracks. In June and July, he competed at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, then went to the Atlanta Motor Speedway to compete in the Bandolero nationals, where he came in 5th out of about 20 drivers.
In August, he drove a late model stock car at Shenandoah Speedway in Virginia. “Mini”‘s mother thinks he’s the youngest — at age nine — to actually race a late model stock car.
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