Kelly Sutton was diagnosed with Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis in 1988 at the age of 16. Kelly was not your typical girl wearing dresses and playing with Barbie dolls. She was riding motorcycles at age 10 and racing go-karts at age 12. Her childhood interests led to her nickname Kelly ”girl” Sutton. To remind her that she was a girl. It really is no surprise she wanted to race. Her father and grandfather had both been racecar drivers. Kelly built her first racecar at age 15 and planned on racing it later that year. Instead she was diagnosed with MS at age 16.
Kelly began experiencing the initial symptoms of symptoms of MS at age 13 of constant fatigue numbness and tingling of her fingers and toes particularly on her right side. After losing all her feeling on her right side at 16 she underwent an MRI and spinal tap. The good news was the doctors finally knew what was wrong with her. Kelly had a little knowledge of MS and its effects because of a parishioner of her church who was bedridden. That was the first image that popped into Kelly’s head.
Kelly did follow her dream though and could be found racing on the short tracks in the Maryland and Virginia area from 1992-1994. She won 7 feature races, 20 qualifying heats and 5 poles while competing in the Pro Mini-Stock Series at Old Dominion Speedway as well as winning most popular driver for the Speedway.
In 1996 the wheels came off Kelly’s racing career as she found herself in a wheelchair. . Kelly says that was a very depressing time she states she could not even watch racing. In 1997 Kelly’s neurologist changed her treatment medication, which helped trigger a remission of her MS.
In 1997 she wasted little time getting back behind the wheel with a little jump-start from her father. She competed in the Allison Legacy Pennsylvania Series and ran 4 races in the National Legacy Series as well. She won 2 feature races and 3 poles in the Pennsylvania series. Kelly also continued a trend that started back in 1992. The trend of winning Most Popular Driver Award for the tracks and circuits she raced on. To this day she says her most memorable award was not any one race she won but the honor of being named Metropolitan Auto Racing Fan Club of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia’s Most Popular Driver award. The reason this was such a special award to Kelly was both her father and Grandfather had won the same award when they were racing.
Kelly admits that none of this had come easy. It had taken her a couple of years to come to grips with the fact she had MS and what it may or may not do to her body, mind and dreams. Kelly did not race in 1999 as she and her family searched for a sponsor for the family run business.
In 2000 Team Copaxone agreed to sponsor Kelly’s car. Kelly ran 2 Goody’s Dash Series races in 2000 and 6 more in 2001. In 2002 Kelly ran in 14 races finishing 12th in race points and 3 in Rookie Of The Year standings. In 2003 Kelly ran all nine Goody’s Series races and finished 8th in the standings for the year. Kelly also ran in 4 Nascar Craftsman Truck Series races in 2003. In 2004 Kelly made the move to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series fulltime.
It was not the best time to be a rookie in the series with but Kelly continued her success in racing. While the success was not winning any races but she did set or tie records for best finish by a woman in. She finished 26th in driver points for the year. 2004 was the first year that Team Copaxone was competing as a team.
When Kelly makes an appearance on her sponsors behalf it’s a little different than just appealing to everyday consumers, she is most likely appearing before others with MS. Kelly says, “when I talk to these people, I know what they feel particularly the newly diagnosed.” Kelly wants to say, ”Hey Look at me. We can get thru this. Take a look at therapy or treatment medication, work with your Doctor, treat your symptoms and you can do it.” Approximately 2.5 million people worldwide are affected by MS, approximately 400,000 people in the United States. Almost 50% of those people are not on an approved therapy or treatment medication. Kelly’s efforts both on and off the track have not gone unoticed as she received the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award from the Women’s Sports Foundation in 2003. She was also among last year’s recipients of the Gene Autry Courage Award from Angels Care, the Tempe Arizona Sports Authority. All in all not bad for someone who was pretty much told in 1996 that she would not walk again.
Another thing that makes Kelly's accomplishments behind the wheel more difficult is the heat she must subject her body to during the course of a race. If the body temperature of a person with MS is raised 1/10th of one degree it is comparable to raising the body temperature of a person without MS by a whole degree. Heat has been found to cause Psuedo symptoms of an exasperbation. Psuedo symptoms appear as if a person with MS is having a "flare up" however the symptoms usually last for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours rather than a few days to a few weeks that exasperbations last. It is not uncommon for a person working outside in the summer to have a body temperature of 99 degrees which in a person with MS would be comparable to a person without MS having a temperature of 102 degrees. |
