My friend Enrique Ramirez, who by day owns a Puroclean franchise, is also in charge of a One Lap of America team. One Lap is an annual car race. People drive souped-up street cars through multiple states, stopping from time to time to race the cars even more around various racetracks along the way.

Enrique’s racing team is Racing for the Children. I recently finished developing a website for the team.

When Enrique approached me with the project, I thought “Hmmm…that car race sounds familiar.” And it is! In the early 1980s, when I was young and tasteless and not always sober, I went to see both of the awesome and horrible Burt Reynolds Cannonball Run movies. And loved them. One Lap of America is the actual descendant of the actual Cannonball Run. How cool is that?

These days the race is structured and publicized and safety-oriented, which allows Enrique to compete in it annually and use his racing team to raise money for Save the Children. Very cool project for him.

The website was a cool project for me, too. I got to illustrate a map, which I love to do.

My dad is a geologist. He often worked at home (and still does), drawing maps with tech pens and prismacolor pencils. I used to sit in his office, in a visitor chair, copying the maps he had pinned to his walls into a little spiral notebook with a ballpoint pen. I coveted his colored pencils.

Enrique starts the One Lap on Saturday in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. You can follow his progress on his blog, and you can also Like This on Facebook.

4 Comments