Whole Lotta Locks (Of Love)

Some folks look at the rapidly growing hair of crew chief Tony “Rambo” Liberati and driver Brendan Gaughan and wonder if they’ve gone hippie on the world. Nothing could be further from the truth – especially for former Marine Liberati --- who’s always had a tightly trimmed head of hair.

The two were made aware of an organization, Locks Of Love, and thought they’d like to contribute to the needs of children through methods other than tossing a check in an organization’s direction.

But it’s how Locks Of Love came onto the radar for Liberati and Gaughan that makes for a neat story.

Rambo explains: “It is something that is pretty unbelievable. I went to my five year old son, Alex, and said, ‘We need to go get a haircut.’ He said, ‘I don’t want to get my hair cut.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘Because if you don’t get your haircut you can give it to sick kids that don’t have hair. They make hats for them.’ Hats meaning wigs. I said, ‘Really? Where did you learn that?’ He said, ‘We learned that in school.’ he said, ‘So you want to grow your hair so you can give it to a sick kid?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ And this kid is five years old. I said, ‘OK, we’re going to grow our hair together.’

“This started probably around January or February. I can wear a hat and pull it back to get it out of the way but it sort of got to him a little bit so he went ahead and got a haircut. But because he said that to me, that’s what I’m going to do.

“I want to make sure that I set the record straight to the fact that I’m not trying to look like Brendan,” Liberati adds. “I’m not trying to be a hippie. I’m doing this because my five-year-old son said that he wanted to grow his hair for Locks of Love.

“I’m going to grow my hair eleven inches and I’m going to cut it off. I’ll shave it off bald in front of anyone who wants to watch and give the hair to Locks of Love because that’s what my son said and I was so impressed that he came up with something like that.”

More info on Locks Of Love can be found at www.locksoflove.org.