More Than 3200 Cars for the 17th Annual Cruisin’ for a Cure

After 17 years, Cruisin’ for a Cure has saved over 4,200 lives!!  The event held every year in September, “National Prostate Cancer Awareness Month,” has raised over $1,500,000 for The Cure! This year CFAC presented KSK Cancer Center of Irvine a check in the amount of $110,000. KSK Cancer Center made a 10 year commitment to “The Cure”. Debbie Baker who started the show has made a 20 year commitment to “The Cure”. So this charitable event will be going for many more years. The success of it has spawned other similar shows in New York and Ontario, Canada.

At 4:00 am, the gates opened to receive more than 3200 cars for the 17th Annual Cruisin’ for a Cure, the largest single day charity car cruise and show in the country. At 6:00 am the Anaheim building opened for free prostate cancer screenings. They screened 1,100 men and found 200 with elevated results and suspicious lumps that no one would ever know about without the free screenings.

The opening ceremonies  started at 9:00 am with the raising of the American and California flags. Then the traditional “Parade of Fire Trucks” began with Debbie Baker in the first of 16 beautiful red trucks from all over the country.  The parade is in remembrance of “9/11”. The parade also included an Army Humvee and the Wienermobile.

Year after year hundreds of vendors have contributed and provided information on their latest products: Meguiars, Auto Club of Southern California (AAA), Firestone, Magnuson, MagnaFlow, Connell Chevrolet, Guaranty Chevrolet, Budnik, Lucas Oil, Interstate Batteries, B&M/Hurst/ Flowmaster, Mecum Auctions, Edelbrock, D&D Golf, Bound By Marketing, O’Reilly and the recently added Ralphs/ Food4Less, and Southern California Ford Dealers.

During the day, The Kelly Rae Band played their greatest hits. At the end of the day, awards were given to 60 deserving cars plus 15 “Meguiar’s Elite” awards to cars in the Meguiar’s Hangar. The popular “For Sale” area included 90+ cars.  It will be back again next year.  This year the unflappable Dave McClelland was the “Grand Marshall” and did a great job as the event announcer along with Rex McMillan.

Expect a lot of new and exciting changes for 2017. Check out Cruisinforacure.com for more info. Hope to see you all next year on September 23rd.

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Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the January 2017 print issue of the Drive Magazine.