It was a year to remember for Riley Raynard, and the icing on the cake came earlier this month.
On Dec. 11, the Lampman driver was recognized for his determination on and off the track as the 2014 winner of the Ken Schrader Real Racer Award.
Raynard, 17, battles muscular dystrophy and is confined to a wheelchair. That doesn't stop him from finding success inside his No. 97R hobby stock at Estevan Motor Speedway.
More than 60 drivers from across North America were nominated for the Schrader award, which is presented by Speedway Illustrated, and the field was narrowed down to four finalists. Raynard was the only Canadian among the four.
He travelled to Indianapolis to find out whether he was the winner.
"It's pretty amazing," he said.
"I got to meet (veteran NASCAR driver Schrader) and it was pretty cool. I got to talk to him for a bit. He said you have to overcome a lot of obstacles and you have to be a really determined racer to (win the award)," Raynard added.
Schrader was equally impressed with Raynard, writing on his Facebook page that it was "an honour" to meet him and describing him as "a sweet young man" and "an inspiration to all racers."
The Real Racer Award presentation was part of the annual Performance Racing Industry trade show, which ran from Dec. 11-13.
"There were over 1,000 booths there. Everything was all racing stuff, from drag cars to NASCAR," said Raynard.
"It was pretty insane. It's crazy how many booths they have. It's hard to get through all of them."
After winning two features in Estevan this year, as well as the Motor Magic event in Minot at the end of the season, Raynard wants to be better in 2015.
"I want to get a lot more wins and continue to grow, so more people know who I am. (I want to) get to a couple of different tracks and try and get some wins there."
