In a little over a week this summer, Jim Roberts covered more than 5,000 miles across the country in his 2008 C6 Corvette, made new friends, ate his fair share of gas-station food and raised money for the PA Breast Cancer Coalition.

It's the 14th year Roberts has participated in One Lap of America, an event that brings together car enthusiasts from around the country to compete on racetracks nationwide. Over the years, Roberts has raised just under $50,000 for the charity through participation in the event.

The competition began at the Tire Rack facility in South Bend, Ind., Roberts explained, noting that Tire Rack is the national sponsor of One Lap of America. There, Roberts competed in the wet skid pad event, which turned out to be his best contest this year.

"I had a tremendous start to the week, finishing seventh overall out of 84 competitors, and second in class, in that event," he recalled. "The really neat thing is that I was the fastest American brand car since the top six were all German cars with the first place being a Porsche GT3."

From South Bend, the group drove to Grissom Air Force Base in Indiana; northeast to the Youngstown, Ohio, area; south to Atlanta; northwest to Nashville; southwest to Texas; north to Oklahoma; into Kentucky to the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park; and then back to South Bend, visiting tracks at each of these destinations.

"The most challenging part of this is that every other day we had a 700-mile-plus transit between tracks," Roberts said. "We usually didn't leave one place until about 3 p.m., and then we'd drive 700 miles and get into our motel about 1 or 2 a.m."

Roberts credits his ability to complete the event to his transit driver, Gary "Duck" Drake, a friend from Cincinnati who has accompanied Roberts on the trip for the past four years.

One Lap of America was created by Brock Yates, an automotive journalist and editor of "Car and Driver" magazine. He first created the Cannonball Run race that inspired the 1981 movie of the same name before changing the event to One Lap of America. Since 1992, the race has used the same format, having competitors drive almost 24 hours a day with competitions at racetracks throughout the country.

Although the goal is to win the races, Roberts participates for other reasons. He raises money for the PA Breast Cancer Coalition through sponsors, who are recognized by stickers Roberts puts on the roof of his car during the event. He also likes the challenge of the endurance event, the opportunity to reconnect with his racing friends and the chance to race.

The owner of Jim Roberts West Main Auto in Mount Joy, Roberts has always enjoyed cars. He started driving Corvettes in 1992 and became interested in track performance. He has been teaching since 2005, both to civilians on the motorsports side and to government personnel whose jobs may require precision driving. His home track for teaching is in Summit Point, W.Va.

Roberts is already looking forward to next year's One Lap of America, and he's excited to continue to compete.

"I love racing on the tracks and seeing my friends who I don't see all year long," he said.