An update with a lot of thank yous

The NASCAR Foundation's online auction to benefit Pennies For Wessa ended late last week and the total raised was about $4,600.

Add $5,000 donated by Rusty Wallace from his participation in the Saturday Night Special race at Bristol and another $1,000 from Richard Childress and more than $10,000 was raised for Wessa Miller and her family. That's awesome.

There have also been a number of donations made directly to penniesforwessa.org since the auction began a few weeks ago, so we've done a lot of good for the young lady who 11 years ago gave Dale Earnhardt a lucky penny before he won the 1998 Daytona 500.

As great as it was to see all of that money raised, it was just as nice to see how much fun Wessa and her parents, Booker and Juanita, had when they visited Bristol for the race a couple of weeks ago. They met a lot of people who were very nice to them and had a great time.

Wessa got to meet her favorite driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr. She also seemed to connect to Bootie Barker, Michael Waltrip's crew chief. Barker is also in a wheelchair and because the No. 55 team's hauler has to be accessible for him Wessa was able to go up into the transporter and see what that's like.

I would never be able to list all of the people who were part of making that weekend successful. Tom Sullivan and Kim Hyde and Shannon Wiseman and Lori Worley and Wes Ramey and my wife, Katy, and well, as I said, I can't list them all, but thanks to everybody involved.

It has been an important few weeks for Wessa. Last Sunday she was baptized at her church in Kentucky. Heaven continues to smile on the Millers, because as nice as it is that so many people have helped their family out financially, they've always been rich because they've got each other.