What would you spend with $300,000-plus?
If you’re on the board of directors of the Kurt Caselli Foundation (KCF), that’s almost a no-brainer: You put that money to work improving safety for off-road riders and especially off-road racers. That’s been the goal of the KCF since Caselli’s fatal accident at the SCORE Baja 1000 in 2013, with the Foundation established soon after (January 2014).
In three years, the KCF has brought in $622,000 entirely through donations and spent more than half of that ($315,031, to be exact) on safety-related initiatives. Those range from purchasing an ultrasound machine (to the tune of nearly $40,000) that was donated to the arsenal of equipment used by the Alpinestars Mobile Medical Unit at AMA MX Nationals and Supercross races to help determine internal injuries to establishing the Kurt Caselli Memorial Scholarship a year ago (two scholarships a year will be awarded with Starr Savage and Rachel Gutish the two recipients to date) to something as simple as an under-the-visor sticker where a rider can put his name/emergency contact/medical history info in case of accidents.
Of those, one of the most potentially helpful is the continued research into head acceleration and brain injury. As KCF board of directors member Jon-Erik Burleson says, “Right now we’re just starting to see good signs that there’s some really interesting data that comes up: A) off-road motorcycling’s really healthy compared to stick-and-ball sports; they’re able to make some comparisons there which is good for the moms and dads of the world to see. And in addition to that, we were using the King-Devick tests at hare & hound events that monitored the concussion stuff so that the off-road-riding world is paying attention to—or Youth [racers and parents]—are paying attention to [it] the way stick-and-ball sports are.”
He added, “We’ve been working on some initiatives that hopefully down the road—those are longer-term initiatives down the road four or five years—we can see maybe some technology and maybe some protocols that help make our sport a little bit safer.”
And as long as events like this weekend’s 4th Annual Kurt Caselli Foundation MotoDoffo Winery Fundraiser in Temecula, California, or the Kurt Caselli Memorial Ride Day later this year or the thousands of smaller donations daily from the sale of KCF items or KCF FMF apparel keep rolling in, rest assured that off-road riding and racing will continue to benefit safety-wise.
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