Kyle Petty Charity Ride visits Charlotte NC

The 14th annual Kyle Petty Charity Ride stopped over at the Ballantyne resort in Charlotte, North Carolina to park their motorcycles for the evening and to put on a nice event for the local crowd.  The charity ride started near Traverse City, Michigan last weekend, as mentioned in a previous motorcycle info article, and will end in Savannah, Georgia this weekend.

It was truly a great experience to have been there as Kyle Petty, Richard Petty and Ned Jarrett and all cheered on the kind folks that participated in the ride, the volunteers, as well as the organizations that were received donations from the ride.

One of them was the Allegro Foundation, which was presented with a nice over-sized check for $25,000 from the Kyle Petty Charity Ride.

The Allegro Foundation, a champion for children with disabilities, then had some of their children put on a fun show for Kyle and the entire crowd, including a song written just for the event.  They even got Kyle to join in with them too.  Victory Junction Gang Camp, formed by Kyle Petty and family, as well as several other childrens charities will benefit from the money raised during the annual ride.

Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, introduced as the “next Governor of North Carolina”, took some fun ribbing by Kyle Petty and others after McCrory mistakenly referred to Ned Jarret as Dale Jarrett during the start of his speech.  Kyle jokingly announced afterwords that the Jarrett family was no longer planning to vote for Pat McCrory for Governor.  Kyle and a few other VIP’s then started to refer to the Mayor by different first names just to rub it in a little more.  It was good fun, and the Mayor got a great laugh out of the whole thing as well.

After the ceremonies, Kyle Petty, Richard Petty and Ned Jarrett very kindly signed autographs and posed for pictures with the fans, including yours truly from ww.motorcycle info.org.   Some of the folks then wandered among the many beautiful motorcycles that were there, including interesting ones ridden by Kyle, NFL football’s Herschel Walker, and the folks from Chick-fil-A and Coca-Cola.  There were also several beautiful police motorcycles parked in groups.

Many of these street bikes were Harley Davidson touring models.  Some were very customized, like Herschel Walker’s red motorcycle pictured here.  It is loaded with chrome accessories, custom paint with a subtle blue pin striped design, and of course, a nice set of exhaust pipes.

Kyle’s beautiful silver and gray Victory motorcycle was decorated with his famous NASCAR number 45. It was really quite impressive to see in person too.  The American made Victory Vision looks like an artist’s sculpture from every angle and really grabs people’s attention.

There will be a lot of windshield cleaning to do before they head out on the last portion of this year’s Kyle Petty Charity Ride to Georgia.  Mr. Dan Cathy, from the very successful Georgia-based Chick-fil-A restaurant chain, was also there to participate with the Charity Ride.  Chick-fil-A is the presenting sponsor for the Kyle Petty Charity Ride this year.

If you have some additional motorcycle info to share about the Kyle Petty Charity Ride, or just enjoyed this article, please leave a comment below that we can share with all our readers.