Here at DSC we are aware of many very worthy causes, but few that touch on both the subject that we love: racing; and an inspiring individual that many of us have had the pleasure to spend time with and watch out on track. But with Racing4MND all of those come together. Neil Cunningham’s story is one of the richest out there.
It starts from a love of all things fast and tales of being chased, fairly unsuccessfully, by the local Australian police, including on the beach who, once they caught him, told him that he should really be driving like that on the tracks. It was sound advice, so Neil embarked on a 27 year career as a professional racing driver, piloting all kinds of machinery but perhaps best known for his campaigns in British GT in the early 2000’s and the Morgan Aero 8 and Barazi Epsilon Courage at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
He was a hired gun too, quite literally when called upon to do some stunt driving and machine-gun toting extra work in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace and also hired in by the owners of classic racing cars who wanted to see them being driven as their makers intended. The Silverstone Classic and Le Mans historic racing (including THAT drive in the E-Type) became his stomping grounds too.
Outside of racing, Neil is a big figure on the Welsh surfing scene, knowing all the gnarliest characters and the gnarliest and most secret spots, and has a loving family too.
Always with a smile (its easy to see why given that lifestyle!) and full of banter, it was terrible news for Neil and all who knew him to hear in 2010 that he had been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, something that would end his racing career immediately and also threatened to end his life in all to short an order.
Neil, always a fighter, has done a remarkable job of battling this terrible disease, which can affect any adult at any time by attacking the motor neurones that send messages from the brain to the muscles so sufferers rapidly lose the ability to walk, talk and feed themselves and sadly half of the sufferers die within 20 months of diagnosis. What’s more, Neil has set up a charity to fund research into the disease and seek to find a cure. The charity is linked to the Heaton Ellis Trust and funds the hard work of Professor Christopher Shaw and his team at Kings College Hospital, finding a cure being his lifetime aim.
The charity’s funds also support research into MS and Parkinson’s and every donation is boosted by match funding from research councils in the US and the UK, so donating a pound actually raises four pounds for the cause.
With a significant milestone for Racing4MND last week, passing £10,000 in donations, Neil hopes the cause is still really only on its ‘formation lap’ and aims to raise significantly more. If anyone in the Motorsport community has any fundraising ideas that DSC could assist with organising, please drop us a line.
Neil’s aim is to bring racers of all types together in raising funds (or indeed anyone who simply wants to donate), whether a runner, swimmer, cyclist or indeed racing driver or rider.
Please see this website (as to which Neil was very keen to thank fellow GT racer and Le Mans team-mate Adam Sharpe for putting together) to find out more and to donate: www.racing4mnd.org
For more on Neil (but still nowhere near the full story!) see – here
