In the race of his life, James Candelaria wasn’t behind the wheel. Instead, he lay in a hospital bed, his doctors fighting to keep him alive. The heart failure he had been carefully managing for years had taken a critical turn. He needed a new heart—and he was racing against time.

So when his doctors told him they had a match, the gratitude James felt was beyond anything words could describe. And only 6 months later, with his new heart beating strong, James was cleared to return to racing. Today, in addition to pursuing his love of motorsports, he’s running his business, working on getting his pilot’s license, and enjoying spending time with his wife and daughter.

“I am grateful to the medical team who fought tooth and nail to keep me alive long enough to have my second chance, and I am grateful to the entire medical community who never stop pushing for ways to make organ transplant a reality,” says James. But most of all, he says, “I am so grateful to my donor and their family who were so generous in offering another chance at life to another person they never knew.”