When most people think of worlds records, they think of athletic endeavors or some freakish length of finger nails or body hair. Those types of records make for interesting trivia, but lack in making a greater impact.
Nick Keller obliterated a world record, but it was tied to a good cause.
You may remember that I introduced you to Nick Keller, a self-employed mason contractor from Richmond, back in a December issue of The Land. He is the guy who wanted to challenge the world snowmobile endurance record, but he only if it could be tied to a good cause.
He decided to ride for the Keller Family Community Foundation, to raise money and awareness for families enduring cancer battles.
“When you see someone dying of cancer in the hospital bed, we forget about the family and loved ones in the background,” Keller said back in that December interview.
With the foundation in place, all he had to do was ride, and ride he did. The existing record was 12,163 miles covered over a 60-day period.
He set out from Richmond on Dec. 26, and he officially broke the record on Feb. 3, or Day 40 of his 60 day trail trip. He had the record, but did he stop? No, he had 60 days to set the record, so he used them all.
“People thought I was crazy when I told them I’d do 15,000 miles.”
When he pulled back in to Richmond on Feb. 23, he and his 2010 Yamaha RS Vector GT had a new (unofficial) world record of 19,506 miles. That’s 325.1 miles a day. That’s a long time to sit on a sled for one day, let alone 60 days in a row. But, as mentioned before, Keller wasn’t riding merely for the record. He was riding for the families stricken by cancer. Keller knows all about that, since he lost his own mother, Mary Jane, to breast cancer 21 years ago.
He definitely wasn’t riding alone either. He often had snowmobilers join him on the trails of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Even when he was the only one physically on the trail, he wasn’t alone on the sled.
He was riding with all of those families that have been stricken with the deadly disease.
“I didn’t do this for me,” he said. Along the trail, people would approach Keller and wish to share their stories of a loved one battling cancer. “That’s the biggest thing, just to listen to the people.”
Back in December, Keller had said he didn’t really have a fund-raising goal in mind: “If we only raise $10, that’s $10 more than we had when we started.”
Money is still coming in, and though getting the official world record documentation is secondary for Keller, “it will open new doors” for the foundation.
Keller has definitely raised awareness with his ride, and that is a record of which we can all be proud.
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Kevin Schulz is the editor of The Land. He may be reached at editor@thelandonline.com.
