Joe LaMuraglia. Fireball event pic. Photos courtesy of LaMuraglia________
Joe LaMuraglia has a ringer for a teammate in the annual Fireball Run Transcontinental Rally, a 125-team, 3,500-mile Orlando-to-Los Angeles adventure rally that begins Sept. 29 at the Amway Arena in downtown Orlando.
LaMuraglia joins forces with Evan Darling, who happens to be the SCCA Southeast Division champion who recently placed seventh in the Homestead-Miami Speedway Grand-Am Cup Race.
LaMuraglia and Darling also are gay, thus becoming the first out, all-gay team to participate in this yearly cross-country driving event.
'Bottom line, I'm a car geek,' said LaMuraglia, 39, of Nashville, Tenn. 'I remember watching the movie The Cannonball Run as a kid and always thought those type of rallies were cool. But I never thought I could take part in that.'
Well, event organizer J. Sanchez, who is Hispanic and the first Generation X chairman of the Orlando Regional Small Business Chamber, is all about diversity.
'Diversity plays an important role in every aspect of the business community, so why shouldn't it be the same in motor sports?' Sanchez said.
LaMuraglia has had a partner, Steve, for six years.
'It's a great race, but it's not all about racing. It's about having fun,' LaMuraglia said. 'We're using [ this event ] to show diversity, to show that not all gays wear Prada and have a size-29-inch waist.
'Evan, for instance, is a [ professional ] race car driver who just happens to be gay. I think we're going to have a lot of fun together. He's our secret weapon the two days we're on the track.'
LaMuraglia is serious about his affection for cars. He is, after all, the founder and CEO of Gaywheels.com .
'I'm doing this [ race ] for a lot of reasons, but I'm competitive, so I want to win. But that certainly is not the only reason,' LaMuraglia said. 'We also want to generate exposure for Gaywheels.com and, just as important, change a lot of people's perceptions about what it is to be gay. We want to show people that we're just like the guy [ living ] next door. Hopefully we can dispel a lot of stereotypes.
'This event is not all about ( prize ) money or a trophy. But rather, about people who love cars, love driving, camaraderie, seeing the country and having fun doing it, and also of course helping a good cause.'
For instance, the hosts and sponsors have chosen to use Fireball's massive cross country exposure to help locate America's missing children. Every Fireball Run team will be assigned a different missing child. The mission: distribute as many posters as possible along the 3,500 journey. All teams also will apply a full-color removable decal of their missing child to their vehicle.
Fireball is working in conjunction with the Child Rescue Network.
Gaywheels is a resource for the general gay car consumer, not just the gay car geeks. 'We're trying to raise awareness of gays in the automotive industry and how [ gays ] take all shapes and sizes, and this will hopefully dispel some myths,' he said.
LaMuraglia has been running Gaywheels for about 10 years and it is the premiere gay-friendly automotive resource center.
Gaywheels showcases gay-friendly companies – and also those that are not, such as, Honda, BMW, Acura, Kia and others.
So what qualifies a car makes as non-gay-friendly in LaMuraglia's world? 'They do not offer domestic partner benefits to all of their U.S.-based employees,' he said.
Gaywheels offers an easy-to-navigate informational resource for gay car consumers and car-geeks. The top-10 car list from the nationally-known Kelley Blue Book is drastically different from GayWheels' top 10 list.
Gaywheels' top 10 cars are strictly based and ranked on how often cars are researched on the site. The list is published, revised every quarter.
'Everyone assumes that [ the No. 1-ranked car ] would be a BMW 3-Series convertible, or some other luxury car, but what our data says is, that's not what the gay consumer is looking at [ purchasing ] ,' said LaMuraglia, whose site attracts about 35,000 visitors per month.
The Toyota Yaris currently is the top-ranked car on Gaywheels, based on the number of times people have read the [ car's ] reviews or data about the car.
The No. 2 car is the Saab 9-3, followed by the Mazda MX-5 Miata, Volkswagen Jetta and Volkswagen EOS.
'There are cars on the top 10 list that support the stereotype that all of us [ in the LGBT community ] drive luxury cars, such as, Audi A3 or Saab 9-3. There also are cars on that list that dispel the stereotype, such as the Toyota Yaris or Toyota Camry,' LaMuraglia said.
Articles and reviews on Gaywheels.com are written by gay writers. Gaywheels also offers insurance and financing from a gay-friendly companies. And, it has a list of gay-friendly dealers.
GLEE.com ( the Gay, Lesbian and Everyone Else social networking Web site ) is a co-sponsor, along with Gaywheels and Saab. GLEE.com promotes itself as the only social and professional networking site for the online GLBT community.
A GLEE.com spokesperson, Taryn Langer, said it is 'taking part in the sponsorship because it's important to open up cultural experiences across a wide spectrum to their GLBT members.'
BY THE WAY...
Joe LaMuraglia's top three car choices: Saturn VUE, Audi TT convertible and Volkswagen Jetta.
