Starting in the US northeast today, we've talked about how the recovery from Superstorm Sandy is going to take a while. There are thousands of people who can't get back in their homes, miles of pipes have to be reconnected, mold, as we show you yesterday, has to be dealt with and bills. Everything from cleanup cost to unpaid bills from people who had to evacuate, those are piling up. These were a few of the issues brought up yesterday during a state hearing in New Jersey. Officials there trying to get a handle on Tuesday. How to pay reconstruction efforts and what kinds of plants can be made to better protect the area if another storm hits. Meanwhile, New York has got 27 million dollars from the federal government to hire about 5,000 unemployed New Yorkers for work on Sandy cleanup projects. The jobs will be full-time, but temporary. New York's governor and New York city's mayor are asking for more federal money to make additional repairs in their state.

Today's first shoutout goes out to Mr.Weisbeck's senior government class, at Timber Lake High School in Timber Lake, South Dakota.

Lewis Hamilton, Dario Frachitti and Juan Pablo Montoya are all known for their roles in what? you know what to do, are they all invovled in auto racing, theatre, horse racing or Congress. You've three seconds, go...

All three of these guys are invovled in auto racing. That's your answer and that's your shoutout.

 

And you can add Tristan Nunez to that list. At 17 years old, he's around your age, he is one of the youngest auto racing champions ever. And what better spokesman against distracted driving than someone who wants to race cars for a living. Victor Blackwell joins us now with a tale of two talents. One about a driver, one about somebody who's hoping that one day phones and driving will disconnect.

 

"All right, driver, come get in line over here please."

Race car drivers on a race track, no big surprise. What might surprise you is that the favourite to win this race is just 17 years old.

"And you half the field this side, half the field on the side of trester."

He is Tristan Nunez from Boca Raton, Florida, he started racing go-carts at 13. And then graduate to this at 15 before he was licensed to drive through his neighbourhood.

 

"My mom and my self actually feel safer driving on a race track with professional drivers than driving on the regular roads with people who have no idea what they are doing."

He revs up to above 150 miles per hour around this track.

"At that speed, there can be any little distraction, it can be an injury, could be death."

Actually that can happen at any speed. Before the start of the 2012 racing season, a little distraction off the track nearly created a major problem.

 

"I was with mom in my car, and we almost got into accident because she was facebooking, emailing whatever is distracted."

 

"We almost reared-ended somebody, and he, you know, that's when we really, it really hit us, he is like, mom, you've got to put the phone down."

 

So Tristan and his mom Diane Nunez had an idea to inspire other people, especially young people to put the phone down by branding his car "the don't text and drive car.

 

"We put it all over the car and put it on a suit, put it on the website and just took off."

 

"And you've got bracelet because when they raise up there, their hand, with the phone, they see it, exactly."

 

"So, I mean, it just serves as a constant reminder not to do it."

 

Hundreds of teens have pledges to the "not text and drive", some may be even signed Tristan's car as part of pledge.

 

"It's just distracting, it's, you get caught up in another world, compeletly suffer from what you are trying to do."

 

"There is not really a lot teenage of race car drivers out there, so it was, definitely good for them to go on a teenage's car."

 

"I know we are not gonna stop it, but at least it's gonna bring more awareness to people."

 

Tristan was the big winner on this day at Road Atlanta.

 

And he tells teens to look up to him, the key to his success on the track is the same key to staying safe on the road.

 

"You had to have 100 percent focus, you can't loose your focus for any, any reason at all."