Stylish wheels, lively auction, food, and entertainment come together to benefit SYV’s Meals on Wheels program
For the third straight year, the Red River Ranch in Los Olivos saw its lawn became of sea of cars, from antiques, to race cars, to sleek sports cars, wood-paneled wagons, and some of the old classics, just to name a few. And in the middle was the attention-getter: A sleek, black set of wheels fresh out of the Batcave.
That’s right! For the first time, the original Batmobile — the one designed for the TV show by the late, renowned Hollywood car creator George Barris — front and center at the third annual Cars & Cowboys Car Show on Saturday, Sept. 28.
A healthy crowd descended upon the ranch owned and operated by Al and Denise Frink and enjoyed not only the cars, but food and drink, a show by musician Rich Freeman, a live auction, and music provided again by the Motown sound of the Blue Breeze Band.
And 100 percent of the proceeds went to a worthy cause: the Santa Ynez Valley Meels on Wheels program.
Pam Gnekow, CEO of Santa Ynez Valley Outreach, the organization that run the local Meals on Wheels, addresses the crowd just before the auction part of the event to thank everyone for coming and to explain the necessity of Meals on Wheels.
“I can’t tell you what this means when you see these cars, see these people,” Gnekow said. “I see my friends, I see new friends made since this car shown started.” She then turned to Al and Denise Frink who have held the Cars and Cowboys and said “we couldn’t do this without you. Thank you so much!”
Gnekow went to explained how the Meals and Wheels serves up to 409 meals a day for local seniors, how the City of Buellton helped her find a new building and Santa Barbara County provided money for remodeling. And then she summed up why Meals of Wheels is such an important service for the Valley.
“We gave over 1.9 million pounds of food last year through the program,” she said. “And I still get questioned, ‘do people really need more food,’ and that just burns me, when anybody would stand in line for an hour to get some produce from us, which is what happens.
“So is there enough food? I’m gonna say no. As long as people are standing in line, as long as senior need to be fed we’re going to keep doing it.”
After that address, Gnekow explained how she was able to find a new auctioneer for the live auction about to happen.
“When I was thinking about an auctioneer for this, I thought I’d just really like to have a woman do this,” Gnekow said. “So I started looking, and someone told me there was this real badass woman from Arkansas [actually, Oklahoma] and I contacted and asked her if she would do it, and she said yes.”
With that, Carla Harrison a Cal Poly SLO graduate who now lives in Soper, Oklahoma, (Gnekow later corrected that publicly) took the stage and conducted the subsequent auction of goods, services, and experiences donated by local businesses.
Commenting after the auction, Harrison said she got interesting in calling auctions because her dad did that at livestock shows. She also said she was very receptive from the start to the idea of doing Cars & Cowboys when Gnekow asked her, but a little divine intervention ultimately convinced her to say yes.
“I was close to committing to it, but still wasn’t completely sure, so I prayed on it and then got my Bible,” Harrison said. “I opened the Bible to a random page, and it opened to the book of Numbers, like numbers I’d be yelling out at the auction. It was right then that I had to say yes.”
While the auction was going on in the big tent set up on the Red River Ranch property, there were still people admiring the multitude of cars on the lawn. Two Orange County residents were looking at some of the vehicles, one of was familiar with the property.
“My family’s good friends with Al Frink,” said Brooke Garcia of Newport Beach. “We’ve known him for a long time and they’ve invited us up here a few times and it’s a beautiful place.”
Garcia’s boyfriend Hunter Hesslin, said he enjoyed looking at the cars, but wasn’t as much of an automobile buff as his father.
“Yeah, my Dad is big into cars, so I’m here taking some photos for him,” he said. “I was thrilled to see the Batmobile here like everyone else, but the one I really liked is the Lamborghini they have here.”
Some of the cars had the owners/drivers standing by to talk shop with the attendees. Brian Bolton, who was born in the UK but now lives in Ballard, was showing off his 1968 Land Rover Series 2A, along with his brother-in-law John Harrison.
“This is a 1968, but it evolves from a 1948, which was the first utility vehicle,” Bolton said. “It was a non-runner [non-operational] in England, but we were able to fix it and register it as operational here. It only goes about 45 mph tops, but I use it every two or three days to tow things or just drive it around; fortunately there’s not a lot of traffic where I live.”
While Bolton had his vehicle for this show and even put a rope around the front bumper (“just for the hell of it,” he said), he said he doesn’t bring the Land Rover out for just show too often.
“It’s not about showing; it’s about the experience with the vehicle,” he said. “When I drive it, I see my dad and the feel of it. It’s a connection.”
Those attending the Cars & Cowboys Car Show on Sept. 28, got to see all kinds of cars on the Red River Ranch property. Photos by Mike Chaldu.
