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0 A terminally ill teenager from Utah battling cancer was gifted a $30,000 Ford Mustang – and the chance to race it.
Joseph Tegerdine, 18, may have less than a year to live after struggling against bone cancer since seventh grade, but he is fighting for every day after his dad fulfilled his dream of owning the iconic car.
And when the boss of Ford heard about the story he tweeted an invite for the young athlete to take it for a spin at the company’s racing school in North Carolina.
‘It was really crazy. That tweet was just kind of random,’ dad Joe Tergerdine Sr said.
‘He sent a direct message to me, saying, ‘Hey, you want me to do this?
‘If it’s OK, his guys would get everything set up at the Ford Performance Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.
‘I need an instructor, a trainer. Also, I get to drive one of the most powerful Ford track Mustangs there is,’ Joe Jr said, ‘This is going to be sick’
Joseph Tegerdine Jr (right) with his family Langston, London, Joe, Kerry, and Grace
‘They’re flying us out there. It’s just really cool, and we’ll stay in Charlotte for a couple of days.
‘There’s a big dinner before school. Then Joseph will be on the track with the (Mustang) Dark Horse.’
Joe Jr has been a fan of the car since he was small enough to sit in his toy Mustang on the driveway of the family’s then home in Melissa, Texas.
He was working at Sodalicious to save up for the real thing when his dad concluded he might run out of time.
‘With all that’s happening, and we found out he has more tumors in his lungs, we needed to buy the car,’ he told the Detroit Free Press.
‘For those wondering why I’d buy my 18yr old son a 330hp Mustang, well, he’s been given months to live and can’t work long enough to buy one himself,’ he tweeted on March 2.
‘His comment on the way home, ‘Dad, I’m going to squeeze a few extra months of life just to be able to drive this.’ #cancersucks.
Within hours the tweet went viral gaining 14 million views and the attention of Ford CEO Jim Farley.
‘Hi Joe, I’m so sorry to hear what your family is going through,’ the car boss tweeted back.
‘Please let me know if you and your son would like to attend @FPRacingSchool to experience a @FordMustang Dark Horse on the track. DM me and we’ll make it happen.’
Joe Sr’s tweet and the photo of his son at the wheel of the 2020 Mustang racked up 14 million views on X and caught the attention of Ford CEO Jim Farley
Joseph Tegerdine Jr with his girlfriend Lily and the Ford Bronco his family sold
The young couple have had to cope with Joe’s terminal diagnosis and the loss of his right leg
‘You have to live day by day because, day by day, if you look at my life, it’s actually fantastic,’ Joe Jr said
Joe (left) on an excursion with dad Joe Sr and brother Langston
Joe Jr was just a year into middle school when he began feeling persistent knee pain after football that would keep him awake at night.
An MRI detected an osteosarcoma and Joe Jr’s life became a gruelling round of surgery and chemotherapy.
‘Life is just going in a certain direction and then, it’s hard to even explain how quickly things changed for the entire family,’ Joe Sr said.
‘I can’t remember how many weeks passed and treatments but they had to take a big portion of his right leg to remove the tumor.
‘He had a ‘rotationplasty,’ where they cut out the bad bone and rotate your lower leg, take the tibia and fibula, and reattach to the femur. They take out the compromised bone. He has a prosthesis now.’
‘In seventh grade, I was five feet six inches and taller than everyone else on the football team,’ Joe Jr recalled.
‘So they had me playing center and also running back. Then I grew eight inches in a year, and I’m 5 feet 11 now.
‘One of the hallmarks of bone cancer is sudden and extreme growth.’
But he never lost his interest in cars and in the Mustangs of his dreams.
‘I’ve just liked Mustangs for as long as I can remember,’ he said.
‘Six-year-old me liked it, the headlights looked cool, and I stuck with it.
‘I used to drive this Ford Bronco. It was a big truck, basically. I’d get compliments and I’d feel so manly. ‘We sold that and I started driving my mom’s minivan, a Honda Odyssey. I felt like my testosterone was being drained away. Not great.
The family are currently ticking off a bucket list vacation to Osaka, Japan
‘Over the years, I’ve known many parents who have lost their children to sudden tragedy, who never got a chance to say goodbye,’ Joseph Sr said
‘In a Mustang I feel like a man again,’ he joked.
‘It’s the silliest thing. When you get in and start it, the car just rumbles around you. It’s not a noise, it’s a feeling.
‘When you take corners, you can feel you’re being pushed through the corner from the back. I like the way rear-wheel drive feels. When you turn the (steering) wheel, what I feel are cleaner turns.’
And he already knows how he is going to make the most of his all-expenses trip to the Charlotte Motor Speedway, starting with tire-smoking spins.
‘I don’t know how to drift,’ he explained, ‘I’ve always been too scared to go to a parking lot to figure that out, because I’d just hit a light pole or something.
‘I need an instructor, a trainer. Also, I get to drive one of the most powerful Ford track Mustangs there is.
‘This is going to be sick.’
Joe Jr says his family is lucky compared with what some have to endure.
‘Over the years, I’ve known many parents who have lost their children to sudden tragedy, who never got a chance to say goodbye,’ he explained.
‘I’m in Japan right now. I’ve got a car of my dreams, I’m surrounded by tons of people I absolutely adore and I’m going to driving school’ Joe Jr said
‘When my son was first diagnosed I had to make a decision. Either curse God and die or try to make the best of a really bad situation. With the perspective of what it would be like to experience sudden loss, I decided to be grateful.
‘Grateful that we’ve had the 18 years to build memories and enjoy him.
‘Even now, with the only treatments left to prolong life and manage pain, I’m thankful he’s still with us, squeezing out the best that life can offer under less than ideal circumstances.
‘My heart is still broken, but I know it could be a lot worse.’
The family is currently enjoying a bucket list holiday in Osaka, Japan, before they return for their racetrack adventure.
‘You have to live day by day because, day by day, if you look at my life, it’s actually fantastic,’ Joe Jr said.
‘I’m in Japan right now. I’ve got a car of my dreams, I’m surrounded by tons of people I absolutely adore and I’m going to driving school.
‘Then you look at the future, and it all starts to break down. I don’t really need to look at the future. ‘Morbidly, I don’t really have one. I can’t be, like, ‘In a year —’ If I get a year, I’ll be extremely lucky.’
