Mr Morrow, a FECRI board member, said he was unsure of how successful the event would be, but that it had exceeded all expectations.
“I think we’d have raised just under $22,000. We had a target of $20,000 and we achieved that, so we’d say it was successful,” he said.
“Because it was the first time we’d done it we weren’t sure how it was going to go. We wanted to make sure we’d organised everything properly, but everything went pretty smoothly.”
The tour comprised six cars and a total of 14 participants, with each car required to donate a minimum of $2000 to enter and all participants responsible for their own food, fuel and accommodation costs.
The tour started in Ballarat on March 28, where participants heard from FECRI director George Kannourakis.
“George took us for a tour of the Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute, just so everyone who had been raising money got an understanding of where the money was going and what it was being used for,” Mr Morrow said.
“We all got to meet a lot of the researchers and staff there, which was great.”
From Ballarat, the convoy drove 450 kilometres north to Mildura, stopping at a bakery in Birchip for lunch.
The following days saw the tour visit Wentworth in New South Wales, as well as the South Australian towns of Renmark, Loxton, Tanunda, Handorf and Tailem Bend, before returning to Victoria.
Mr Morrow said the three-day tour was packed with fun activities.
“In Renmark we stopped at a brewery where there was a tinny race – the Riverland Dinghy Derby – that a couple of our guys were involved in,” he said.
“At Loxton we went to a private car collection. There’s a farmer there who has 330 cars under cover in three different sheds and it’s absolutely amazing.
“He had a big collection of Holdens, a big collection of Ford Valiants, Lamborghinis, motorbikes, Cheverolets, ones that were in TV shows – he had one shed just of Lancruisers, mainly the earlier ones.
“In our estimation, there would have been about $30-million of cars on display. We went to the Tailem Bend motorsport park and did a tour there, then did some go-kart racing.”
At every stop, Mr Morrow said tour members took advantage of chances to raise more money.
“Each day we had a dress-up theme – the first day was hats, the second day was cross dress and the third day was dressing in disguise,” he said.
“I think dressing up was the key to it all, because everywhere we stopped people were talking to us and asking ‘what the hell are you doing?’
“That started a lot of discussions and led to fundraising.”
Mr Morrow estimated the group raised an extra $1500 in donations simply by talking to strangers.
“Everywhere we stopped and got talking to people, everyone has their own story about cancer, whether it’s themselves, a family member or friends,” he said.
“We got a lot of different stories from people on the journey.”
Mr Morrow said the money raised would go to a cause close to his heart.
“My father passed away from cancer just over 10 years ago, and we could see the work George Kannourakis was doing while he was treating our father,” he said.
“When he passed away our family could see that something big was going to happen there, so we wanted to raise money towards that.
“The money raised will go a long way in cancer research at Ballarat, which helps everyone in the Wimmera as well because they provide the oncology in the Wimmera region.
“Together with our family and the whole community we’ve raised over $100,000 for the institute now.”
Following the success of Drive to Survive, Mr Morrow said plans were in the works for subsequent tours.
“We feel that it probably won’t be annual, but it will probably be biennial,” he said.
“We’ve got other people who have said they’d love to come on it the next time we do it, but we’re mindful that we don’t want to hit up too many people locally for money every year.
“We appreciate all the donations we did get, but we don’t want to be putting our hands out to the same people every 12 months.”
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