By Mark Brumley

• Introduction
• A Petty family project
• Big hearts helped build it
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Big hearts helped build it

The goal here is not to cure children. “You can’t do that in one week of camp, if ever,” Collier said. “Our goal is to create very powerful, empowering experiences, build up their self-esteem, and let them spend a week with children who are going through the same issues that they are going through.”

Victory Junction’s grand opening on June 15 was a star-studded event attended by Paul Newman, Gov. Mike Easley and some of the biggest names in NASCAR, including Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart. County music singer Sara Evans performed before a crowd of about 2,500 people, most of them donors.

Adam Petty and his parents learned about Hole in the Wall Gang Camps at the association’s Bogey Creek Gang Camp in Eustis, Fla., in 1998 during one of Kyle Petty’s Charity Rides Across America. Adam, who did volunteer work for the Starbright Foundation for seriously ill children, was impressed with Bogey Creek and wanted to build a similar camp back home. The family talked about it extensively, but set the project aside after Adam’s death.

“They put all of their plans on hold for a long time and then they rekindled that dream and started again in earnest in the last part of 2000 and have been full steam ahead since,” Collier said.

Donations poured in from corporations, charitable foundations, nonprofit organizations and individuals to build the camp. Kids stay free, so there will always be a need for donations to pay the $2.5 million a year in operating costs.

Randolph Electric also made a “tremendous investment” in installing the power infrastructure at Victory Junction, Rowe said. The investment will be paid off over time through sales of power to the camp. But the cooperative wasn’t seeing dollar signs when it took on the project.

“We thought with our heart, not with our wallet,” Rowe said.

Mark Brumley is a freelance writer and a graduate student at Duke University. He teaches at Randolph Community College and lives in Asheboro with his wife and young son.