Friends organize car show fundraiser for victim of moped accident

(ABC 6 News) – Earlier this month, a man lost control of his moped and crashed into a parked car, leaving him in critical condition.

The Rochester community came together Sunday to hold a fundraiser for Phirum Pheak who was injured in that crash.

“When somebody gets hurt and they’re in the hospital or what have you, it’s really hard to stand by and do nothing. Obviously, we can’t be there bedside while he’s getting care and what not but what we can do is rally together as a community to come together and host something that Phirum would really like and donate whatever we have from that,” Alex Duangmala, one of the organizers of the fundraiser and a friend of Pheak’s, said.

Duangmala and other friends planned this event in about three weeks after they found out he was hospitalized. Duangmala said Pheak is a car enthusiast.

“Phirum has always been into cars for as long as I’ve known him. We grew up going to the skate park here in Rochester and when he’d show up with his car it was always really nice. Even now he’s got a nice Subaru WRX and he’s also a motorcycle fan as well,” he said.

The turnout on Sunday was bigger than the organizers were expecting. They printed off 75 car show entries and they had to make more, ending up having well over 100 cars in the lot.

“Originally, I just threw out an arbitrary number I said $1,000. We’re well over that right now,” Duangmala said during the event.

All of the money raised is going directly to Pheak’s GoFundMe that his brother started.

“We don’t gain anything from this monetary-wise. Everything is being donated,” Duangmala said. “It’s pretty easy to get everybody to come together for something like this.”

The car show had a $10 entry fee. There was also a raffle drawing and local food trucks.