After actor Paul Walker died in an auto accident in 2013, his brother, Cody, spent a month in Atlanta serving as one of three body doubles to help finish the movie “Furious 7″ and give the character Brian O’Conner a proper send-off.
On Oct. 19, Cody Walker returns to Atlanta to honor his brother with the first FuelFest to come to Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton. He co-founded FuelFest in 2018 in Irvine, California, as a family-friendly car show to raise money for Paul Walker’s 14-year-old Reach Out Worldwide. ROWW sends medical professionals, construction workers and firefighters to hot spots around the world after natural disasters, and its volunteers have been in western North Carolina since Saturday helping the area recover from Hurricane Helene.
Cody Walker, a father of three young children, is ROWW’s president and now hosts a half-dozen FuelFests each year all over the country and overseas in places like West Palm Beach, Florida; Scottsdale, Arizona; and Tokyo.
“To do a new location is always exciting,” Walker said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Atlanta has a long history of motorsports and racing.”
The West Palm Beach annual FuelFest is the most popular, drawing more than 20,000 attendees each year, Walker said. He hopes the inaugural Atlanta fest will bring in at least 7,500 people and become an annual tradition.
“FuelFest has grown in a way that I never thought was possible,” Walker said. “People love it, and I have a great team behind it. It’s just a dream.”
One of the highlights of the day, he noted, is the opportunity to drift — a driving technique shown often in the “Fast & Furious” films — during a ride-along with a professional. Drifting is when a driver intentionally oversteers, causing the tires to lose traction while the driver maintains control of the vehicle through a turn. Walker said he doesn’t approve of rogue drivers who do this on public streets, including those in metro Atlanta.
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
“All these young kids doing these (street) takeovers, all this BS going on, it’s damaging to the real enthusiast,” he said. “They’re doing it for TikTok videos, for clicks. It’s not cool. We create a legal safe space for people to come and watch that and even ride in some of the cars.”
And since this is a NASCAR locale, there will be opportunities for attendees to drive around the track.
“I love the response I get from the fans, the positivity” from FuelFest, Walker said. “I’m there all day long. I’m there walking the show. I’m there checking out cars. I enjoy it as much as anybody else.”
His buddy, Tyrese Gibson — a veteran singer and actor from the “Fast & Furious” franchise and an Atlanta resident — will be there as well.
“Tyrese is the ultimate hype man,” Walker said. “He runs around and gets on stage and yells and hops around. To match his energy is impossible. This is his home crowd. He’ll be even more pumped.”
Walker also makes the event free for kids 12 or under. “It’s all about the next generation,” he said, “if we can feed that desire, that love of cars.”
IF YOU GO
FuelFest
1-8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19. $35; age 12 and younger free. Atlanta Motor Speedway, 1500 Tara Place, Hampton. fuelfest.com/atlanta.
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