In November 2022, David Zapsky approached Ed McLean to form an all-veteran American Endurance Racing (AER) team. This suggestion would turn into a driver and crew development program to make it happen!
It all started with Ed McLean bringing in Jake Mac via the VetMotorsports program. Ed, who was driving for Baller Racing Team, convinced the team owner, Steve Cohen, to take a chance on having a veteran participate as a member of the crew. Steve was a little concerned at first but after explaining that Ed himself was a disabled veteran, Steve said that he would give it a shot. Ed reached out to VetMotorsports with the opportunity and soon Jake Mac was working his first event with Baller.
The rest, as they say, is history.
More and more teams began to notice the help Steve was getting from the veterans and asked Ed to see if he could get more vets involved, which he did and the reputation of the veterans started to spread.
Soon Jake Mac was a permanent member of the Baller Racing Team.
In what seemed a bit "out of blue" to Ed, David Zapsky contacted him to discuss gathering veterans for an all AER team. It didn't take much to convince Ed and he started to reach out his contacts at VetMotorsports to get volunteers. Lots of veterans said that they wanted to drive but it quickly became apparent that while they desire was there, the experience to run in AER (one of the most competitive amateur series) was not. Not wanted to turn his fellow veterans away, Ed decided that he needed to find a program to get them the experience so that they could one day drive at the AER level.
After doing research online, contacting lots of veteran racing teams and organizations, Ed realized that there really wasn't a program which focused strictly on veterans that would provide driver development. So, he made one.
A couple of phone calls, virtual meetings, and lots of emails later, Resilience Racing Foundation had offered to help by providing 501c3 charity status as long as what would become Warriors2Racers provided support back to RRF and would include "Powered by Resilience Racing" to its logos and website.
One year later, we have 40 members from all across the US and have coordinated the first-time wheel-to-wheel racing experiences for 3 of them, have a dedicated car in the finishing stages for racing in 2024, a major event scheduled for November 2024, a YouTube channel, a Facebook page, and the potential to expand exponentially over the coming months with partnerships in the works with Whisper 7 6, and the Follow-On Mission.
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