On Thursday, the VIP banquet at the Aladdin Shrine Center hosted approximately 450 people for dinner and a program honoring IndyCar legend Bobby Unser. Mr. Unser's stories had everyone laughing and a Bill Patterson original painting of Mr. Unser racing sold for nearly $11,000. All proceeds from the dinner and the Byers Imports after party benefit The Buckeye Ranch. To date, the Rally for The Ranch has raised approximately $1,200,000. This year, the sponsors included Safelite Auto Glass, Huntington Bank, IceMiller, the Easton Community Foundation, the Bobby Rahal Foundation, and Nationwide and Hagerty Insurance.
The annual car show at Easton Town Center took place on Saturday from 11AM - 4PM and featured over 100 incredible cars. There were vintage, classic, exotic, and racing cars on display from around Ohio and beyond. Highlights included a Ferrari F40, Aston Martin DB5, Ferrari 275GTB, two Porsche 918s, Graham Rahal's IndyCar show car, and dozens of other great cars.
The final part of the Rally for The Ranch was the VIP hospitality experience at Mid-Ohio for the Honda Indy 200, part of the Verizon IndyCar Series. Our guests were treated to a first-rate hospitality experience, complete with a large private party in Turn 1, catered by the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team and held in their hospitality truck. In addition to a great vantage point for the race, guests had complimentary beer and wine, delicious food, and a private meet-and-greet with Bobby and Graham Rahal before the race. Graham told us it would be a great race and he could not have been more correct! In the end, Graham took first place in an exciting, strategy-filled race. As he came around for his parade lap, Graham slowed down in front of our hospitality area and waved to the cheering fans in our party. It was a special moment.
Thank you to everyone who supported this event. We have raised a lot of money for an important organization and had a lot of fun doing so. We'll be back in 2016 with a new venue for the banquet (the Shrine center is being demolished), an even better car show, and hopefully another great race at Mid-Ohio!
For more information about The Buckeye Ranch, the Rally for The Ranch, or Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, visit their websites by clicking on the links.
All of the photos in this post are courtesy of Ed H. You can follow his adventures on Instagram! (@Lionworks) Thank you, Ed, for your support of this event and for the excellent photos. It was difficult to narrow down which sampling of pics to share here!