The Motorcycle Racing Club of Victoria is revving-up support for Spinal Muscular Atrophy Australia at their event – the 2016 Stockman’s Rally.
Taking place in the Big River State Forest just outside of Marysville this Sunday, September 18, the annual event raises much-needed funds for Ronald McDonald House Monash and this year will also be raising money for Spinal Muscular Atrophy Australia.
SMA Australia will be raffling a KTM 350 EXCF motorcycle, which is personally-signed by 2016 Dakar Rally champion Toby Price, on Sunday.
“The Stockman’s Rally has had a great deal of history in getting behind a number of organisations who require charity. We’ve helped raise just over $40,000 for the Ronald McDonald House Monash and even have a room at the Monash Children’s Hospital named after our club,” MCRCV Secretary Martin Jennings said.
“This year we are getting behind Spinal Muscular Atrophy Australia. KTM Australia has kindly donated a 2016 KTM 350 EXCF Enduro motorcycle, which Toby Price has personally signed, and also includes his sticker kit from the 2016 Finke Desert Race,” Martin said.
“We’re hoping to get behind Julie Cini (CEO of SMA Australia) and her great cause to try and raise funds to find a cure for such an awful disease,” Martin added. MCRCV and Julie will be helping selling raffle tickets at the event on Sunday.
Spinal Muscular Atrophy is a genetic condition which affects the nerves (motor neurons) that control muscle movement in children. “It’s basically the childhood version of Motor Neuron Disease,” CEO of SMA Australia, Julie Cini, said.
“It’s a muscle-wasting disease which wastes away your muscles that you can see, like your arms and legs, but it also wastes away your internal muscles that affects coughing, breathing and swallowing.
“It’s the number one genetic killer of babies under the age of two,” Julie, who tragically lost two children to the disease over ten years ago, added. Around 630 people die from Motor Neuron Disease in Australia each year.
Toby Price has recently become an ambassador of SMA Australia and will be visiting Melbourne for a special charity day on Saturday, October 29.
Julie says it is fantastic to have so much support from the motorcycling community: “We’re going to get up close and personal to Toby Price and his manager Alex Doringer who was kind enough to organise the donation of the bike so we could raffle it.
“Alex is coming all the way from Austria for the event specifically,” Julie said.
Julie said the event would be fantastic for budding professional riders wanting to make it big just like Toby Price. “You’ll not only get to see Toby but will get to learn about the development of riders and what managers look for when they’re looking out for new talent,” she added.
The KTM 350 EXCF raffle, which also includes some clothing from KTM Australia, and a seat at Toby’s table at the charity luncheon, is limited to a 1000 tickets at $100 a ticket and will be drawn on Friday, October 14.
You can purchase tickets for the raffle and the ‘Go Full Throttle for SMA Charity Day’ on October 29 online here: http://smaaustralia.org.au/shop/.
“The bike is really unique as it has Toby’s Finke Desert Race sticker kit on it and that’s something that you can’t buy,” Julie said. “About two-thirds of the tickets have already been sold at the moment and they’ll be drawn regardless of how many are sold.
“I would really like to see people receive the support that I never got all those years ago,” she added.
To find out more about Spinal Muscular Atrophy Australia please visit their website here: http://smaaustralia.org.au.
To find out more about the Motorcycle Racing Club of Victoria please visit their website here: http://www.mcrcv.com.au.