Teen cancer patient’s friends build him a custom race car

Just in time for the holidays, Shane Weeks, 19, of Wagoner, Oklahoma, was surprised with a new custom Super Focus midget race car.

This weekend, he raced the car for the first time.

Shane's best friends built him the car, using car parts and donations from members of the racing world and local supporters, when they saw that the young cancer patient couldn't afford to drive a bigger car.

"A guy always wants to step up and climb the ladder in racing to drive a bigger car and Shane was bummed out he wasn't really following the rest of us up," Evan Sewell, who initiated building the custom car along with his brother, Alex, told News On 6.

"I would have done it for him no matter what. If he had the flu, I would have still built this race car for him if I could have," Evan said.

"During the summer he was having surgeries and treatments and we wanted to give him an opportunity," said Alex Sewell of Shane's cancer battle. Shane was battling cancer for the third time.

"The idea was Evan and Kevin Bayer's, then it progressed into me and Evan and a couple of other people," Alex said. "We worked on it and spent our money. We worked over 40 hours a week for three months after we got off work."

Shane arrived at a party in late November, not knowing the event was being held in his honour.

When he was presented with his new car — worth $30,000 — the teen was speechless.

"I was speechless," Weeks told Tulsa World. "It is just awesome. They are my best friends. They are like brothers to me.

"I never expected for them to build one (a midget race car) for me."

"I can't believe that's my midget. I've been dreaming all the time for a midget to get a chance to drive one, I'm just surprised," Shane said at the party. "I'm shocked. I know I'm loved by several."

Last weekend, Shane debuted his vehicle at the Tulsa Shootout, revving his engine alongside 1,000 other cars.

"I've been here almost every year for 19 years watching and I was always like, ‘I want to drive so bad," he said of the event's significance.

"My goals are to race this a lot more and hopefully get a win or two under my belt," Weeks said.

He placed ninth in the "Ecotech Midget class" on Sunday night.

His greatest victory, however, is health-related:

"I am cancer free. I found out about a month and a half ago," Weeks told Tulsa World on Monday.