RAPID CITY - This Saturday's ninth-annual Kathy Morris Memorial will decide the 2008 point championships for the Dakota Kart Racers and the Badlands Mini-Sprint Association.
More importantly, the event will also remember a wife, mother, active racer and private pilot enthusiast, as well as raise awareness and money to battle the disease that claimed her life.
Kathy Morris died in March of 2000 from complications of melanoma. She was 32.
Her husband Mitch, of Rapid City, donated the land for Heartland Speedway. He and daughters Alysse and Chase continue to be active in karting since Kathy's death.
Kathy was in her second season of racing karts and had also begun flying lessons when she was diagnosed.
Alysse 16, races in the Stock Medium class and Chase, 12, competes in Junior 1 Sport.
Gates open at Heartland Speedway, about three miles south of Rapid City on Highway 79, at 1:30 p.m.
Hot Laps for the Dakota Kart Racers and Badlands Mini-Sprinters are from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.
A dinner/picnic is set from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., with pizza donated by Boston's Pizza of Rapid City. Pizza is $1 per slice, with proceeds going for cancer research.
Racing starts at 6 p.m.
"The point of the whole thing was to have a fun activity, not just the racing aspect, but just to get together," Morris said.
Morris said off-season changes to the track layout, widening the radius of the corners and moving the backstretch into more a "D" shaped oval, have improved competition.
"It helped the mini-sprints and it helped the karts quite a bit too," he said. "Everyone seems to like it."
Morris hopes to add motorcycle classes to the race program on a regular basis next year. Also in the planning stages is a non-points motorcycle, kart, and mini-sprint event yet this month, Morris said.
For this weekend, Morris said his wife would enjoy the event that bears her name.
"She was really a people person, kind of a pusher," Mitch Morris said. "She would have done a lot better job of promoting it than we've been doing."
"She'd have brought a smile to the place, I know that."
