A military family were surprised when a racing legend surprised them at the Indiana Motor Speedway.
Struggling veteran Christopher Hill, his wife Kristina and his five children were given tickets to the Brickyard 400 weekend that took place this past Sunday.
According to WJBF, Hill got more than he bargained for when NASCAR legend Richard Petty showed up, handing Hill a year’s worth of groceries and the keys to a new pickup.
The Hill family surprise was sponsored by Eckrich, who has donated over $2.5 million to the veteran-centric Operation Homefront charity over the past half-decade.
“It’s great to work with companies like we do here with Smithfield and Eckrich to be able to give back to the community, and give especially to our armed forces people and stuff, so it’s good to work with those kind of people,” Petty said.
When the “king” of racing presented Hill with a Ford F-150 truck filled with tailgating supplies and a year’s worth of groceries from Eckrich and Kroger, Hill collapsed to his knees.
“I’m so thankful for Operation Homefront and what my wife does, Hill said. “I can’t thank her enough for what the family does for me. I wish I could have everyone here who serves in a uniform, I really really do. This is amazing and to have this bestowed upon us I can’t thank you enough.”
HIll served in the military for fifteen years and was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
NASCAR driver #43 Aric Almirola -who grew up as a “military brat”- said that “it’s so awesome to be able to give back to military families in really special ways like this, above and beyond the fact that Kroger gave them free groceries and we gave them a whole tailgating setup to be able to tailgate and grill out some Eckrich smoked sausage. We gave them a new Ford F150 and it’s a really cool way to be able to say thank you.”