News : Racers, fans remember Urbana 5, continue organ donor awareness efforts

The Urbana 5/Iowa Donor Network brought many to the Benton County Speedway on Sunday.

After seeing 100 or so race fans sign up for the Iowa Donor Registry at last year’s Urbana 5/Iowa Donor Network race night, Tia Tuttle was curious about how many more people would sign up at this year’s event, held Sunday at Benton County Speedway in Vinton.

But it turns out that last year’s event and the ongoing efforts to raise awareness of organ and tissue donation have been so successful that only one previous non-donor signed up on Sunday.

“Benton County and the crowd is roughly 90% registered donors, especially due to the high response at last year’s event,” said Vinton native Jess Ender, who has been working with the Iowa Donor Network for several years. “We did raise $340 to give to IDN and many took information on how to register online. It was a great night to get everyone to continue to think and talk about their decision to be an organ and tissue donor.”

Ender spoke to the crowd, sharing the ongoing story of her boyfriend, Chris Luloff, who is awaiting his second kidney transplant. Ender told the crowd that while Luloff appears as normally healthy as other racers, his life and health depend on regular dialysis. After dealing with kidney problems for most of his life, Luloff had a transplant several years ago, but the transplanted kidney later failed.

Remembering the Urbana 5

Brittany Usher, a long-time friend of Tia Tuttle, spoke in memory of the Urbana 5. The five youngsters – Hunter and Zoey Tuttle, Triston Randall, Quentin Ary and Nikki Jacobsen – died April 9, 2015 in an accident near Urbana.

Usher recalled how Tia’s children, Hunter, Zoey and Triston, had spent hours each week during racing season helping racers including Curtis Roster and Dakoda Sellers. Both Hunter and Zoey dreamed of racing their own cars.

“The day of the accident, Zoey work her shop clothes to school,” Usher told the crowd. “She wore a racing shirt and her most dirty, ripped-up pair of jeans. She wore them because she wanted to go straight from school to Curtis’s shop to help him on his race car and she didn’t want to waste the five minutes it would have taken her to go home and change.”

Triston, said Usher, was a fan of local racer Danny Dvorak, and even as a baby had spent time in Dvorak’s racer. And Hunter loved working on the body panels for Sellers’ car.

Usher also recalled when Zoey was watching another one of her favorite racers, Justin Stander, compete in a race against Roster.

“Zoey was beside herself because she didn’t know who she was going to cheer for… she had a hard time with that but eventually figured out it was OK to cheer for both of them,” Usher recalled.

Usher ended her speech with a tribute and a call for others to make the same decision as the families of the Urbana 5 to help others via organ and tissue donations.

“All five of them never hesitated to help anyone, with anything at any time,” she said. “Its amazing that even in death they are still helping people. That is why organ and tissue donation is so important. Their families did not hesitate in making the decision to allow them to be donors and it has been therapeutic to their families knowing that they are still able to help others.”

After thanking the crowd for coming and for their continual support of the families of the Urbana 5, Usher led them in a moment of silence before racers, including Dvorak, Sellers and Stander, made five slow parade laps around the track, one for each of the Urbana 5.

Because of the efforts of the Tuttle family and friends including Usher and Tammy Zimmerman, organizers were able to offer a variety of door prizes to spectators. The Iowa Donor Network also helped with recruiting sponsors to offer bigger payouts to attract more drivers.

Among the cars making a rare appearance at the Benton County Speedway were the Legends Series, miniature replicas of old-style cars with creative designs. Mike Mueller of Wisconsin, the winner of the Legends feature, had decorated his car in a Lightning McQueen theme.

Scholarships and eye care funding

Fund-raising tributes and memorials have earned around $6,000 in the past year. The Tuttles plan to use that money to fund three $500 scholarships for CPU seniors and two for VS seniors. The rest will go toward the "Living Life Through Your Eyes" fund which will help with eye care costs for families who cannot afford it.

See the Iowa Donor Network page HERE.

See more race photos HERE.