By Doreen Hemlock, Sun Sentinel
After his mother died of colon cancer in 2009, South Florida’s race car driver Ryan Hunter-Reay dreamed of helping to find a cure and one day dedicating a cancer facility in his mother’s honor.
On Friday, the Indianapolis 500 champion announced a $2.5 million gift to Cleveland Clinic Florida’s new cancer center in Weston, where the lobby will be named for his mom, Lydia Hunter-Reay.
The gift is a joint donation from his own nonprofit organization, Racing for Cancer, and Fort Lauderdale-based retailer AutoNation, which has partnered with Hunter-Reay since last year to raise funds to fight cancer.
Both groups initially gave $1 million each, and AutoNation pledged an additional $500,000 – or $1,000 for every mile Hunter-Reay completed on his road to the Indy 500 victory this past May.
“I never thought this was going to be real,” Hunter-Reay said Friday in announcing the donation. “I thought we’d make a difference with small drops in the bucket. But this is a big splash. It’s a wave.”
Lydia Hunter-Reay was diagnosed in July 2008 after her back pains worsened. She hadn’t visited a chiropractor or doctor about those pains. By the time she did, “she had a blockage and tumors the size of baseballs,” said Hunter Reay. Doctors gave her only a short time to live. She died — after chemotherapy, surgery and other treatments — at age 55. Ryan, her only son, was just 28.
“It was horrible,” Hunter-Reay said of those months when his mother was in and out of Broward County hospitals and suffering. “She was like my best friend.”
“My only escape was racing. When you race, you can’t think of anything else,” he said. But as he traveled to races across the nation, Hunter-Reay agonized, thinking he should be back in South Florida with his mother.
Hunter-Reay now advocates for preventive care and education about cancer. He recommends colonoscopies, which he decided to get before turning 50 because of his family history with cancer.
To raise funds to fight cancer, his group holds events called “yellow parties” linked to major races nationwide. Other drivers often show up and donate helmets and other gear for auction. AutoNation staff and vendors regularly promote the event and attend, said Tom Vossman, president and co-founder of the Racing for Cancer nonprofit.
AutoNation has committed to match funds raised by those yellow parties through 2015 and work with Hunter-Reay afterward, said AutoNation president Mike Maroone, who lost his grandmother to cancer. Maroone and his family donated $10 million to Cleveland Clinic Florida for its cancer programs.
“This is a dream partnership for us,” Maroone said at the clinic Friday. He said Hunter-Reay generously gives of his time to visit AutoNation locales, meet staff and advocate for the fight against cancer.
Hunter-Reay’s wife Beccy also takes part in the campaigns. She has lost three of her grandparents to cancer, two from lung cancer and one from throat cancer.
Cleveland Clinic Florida broke ground last year on a five-story, 143,000-square-foot building that will house the expanded Pauline Braathen Neurological Center and Maroone Cancer Center. The cancer center and Lydia Hunter-Reay lobby are expected to open early next year.
“If anyone comes to me to say “Thank you; because of your efforts we caught the cancer early enough to beat it and did not have to go through what you and your family did,” said Hunter-Reay, “it makes it all worthwhile.”
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