13-year-old girl races in NASCAR’s youth programs for children with diabetes

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Lacy Kuehl

Lacy Kuehl, 13, doesn’t have diabetes, but she’s battling the disease on behalf of those who can’t.

After Lacy lost her baby brother Rocco, she got into racing to raise awareness, and now she’s breaking records in one of NASCAR’s youth programs.

Lacy gets a lot of heads to turn at the race track not because of her age, or even because she’s a girl racing among the boys. It’s because her true drive lies within her heart.

“I started racing when I was 6.5 and it happened after my little brother passed away from diabetes,” Lacy said.

Rocco was just one year old and Lacy – though only four at the time – remembers several trips to the hospital.

Lacy Kuehl

She said, “We took him to hospital. Three hours later they said he had the flu, go home … He started breathing funny, started wetting the bed more so we took him back to the hospital.

Brent Kuehl is Lacy’s dad. He said, when Rocco passed away it was a shock, “it was something nobody would ever want to experience and it was very difficult to go on with life.”

Lacy met a diabetic racecar driver and her dad said: “Why don’t we try racing?” It gave their family the strength to start sharing their story.

Lacy’s skills behind the wheel, and her charity, reached new heights this summer when she received an award with NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program.

She credits all her success to her little brother.

Lacy will be back at 4-17 Southern Speedway on March 28, and she’ll be racing for Londyn, a five-year-old girl who walked out of the hospital last week after being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

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