AS the world’s fastest motorcycle racers converge on Phillip Island for the opening round of the FIM Superbike World Championship on February 24-26, motorcycling enthusiast John McCabe will be revving his engine for an entirely different cause that is very close to his heart.
The father-of-two from Mooroolbark will be sporting pink leathers and a matching pink bike all in an effort to raise awareness for breast cancer and to raise funds for the McGrath Foundation.
“In March 2016, we found a lump in my wife’s left breast. We got it checked out immediately and she, unfortunately, had to have a mastectomy within five weeks of being diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer,” John said.
“It was such a shock. Marieke is 38-years-old, doesn’t drink or smoke, eats healthily and works out three times a week – all the things you should be doing,” John added.
“After the mastectomy she had to have four months of chemotherapy followed by radiation therapy. Breast cancer is the gift that keeps on giving, but it’s not the gift you want,” he added. “So many have helped throughout this journey and we don’t have room to thank everyone individually, but you know who you are, and we’d like to give you our sincere thanks.”
John will take to the track in the Supersport Support race in an effort to get the message across to not only women the world over to get checked regularly for breast cancer but also to men to encourage the women in their life to be aware of a disease that killed 2862 Australian females in 2013.
“Motorcycling is a very blokey sport, and a 6-foot-tall guy wearing pink leathers and riding a pink bike, I hope, will make the blokes take notice and encourage their wives, girlfriends, daughters, sisters or mothers to get checked regularly,” he added.
It’ll be John’s first competitive race at the world-renowned circuit. “Ideally, I would just like to finish the race without any incidents so I can get as much awareness out there as possible by having the bike ride around the circuit and getting people to start asking questions about it,” John said.
“If I could do something amazing like finish in the top 20 out of a field of 40 riders I would be pretty happy but I have never actually raced before so this is a baptism of fire,” he added.
John says he has already raised $8,000 for the McGrath Foundation. “If we could raise another $2000 or so to get us over $10,000 it would be wonderful and it would be really needed for the breast care nurses at the McGrath Foundation,” John added.
John would like to thank everybody who has helped support his fundraising efforts so far. “I’d particularly like to thank Marc Burnell, Greg Smith and Simon Hunter, and Netrider – without them we couldn’t have made this happen,”
To make a donation at ‘Ride for Meeks’ please visit www.rideformeeks.org and click on their Go Fund Me Page.