How NASCAR’s Ryan Blaney And A 2005 Ford GT Can Help Fight Alzheimer’s

It’s been said the best acts of charity are those that are offered anonymously because it’s an act from the heart instead of an attempt to gain accolades. That message rings true to 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Champion Ryan Blaney, who received a special car from a donor who wishes to remain anonymous so it can be auctioned to the highest bidder at a Barrett-Jackson Auction on Friday, January 23 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

One hundred percent of the proceeds will be donated to help find a cure for Alzheimer’s and help families who are dealing with an Alzheimer’s Disease victim.

It’s a collaborative effort between the anonymous donor, The Ryan Blaney Family Foundation and Barrett-Jackson, a leading auction house of rare and classic cars and charity car auctions.

Details On The 2005 Ford GT That Will Be Up For Auction

The special car that will be auctioned is a 2005 Ford GT, one of just 776 finished in Mark IV Red for the 2005 model year. It is powered by a supercharged V8 rated with 550 horsepower and mated to a Ricardo 6-speed manual transmission.

Originally purchased from a Ford dealer in Sparta, Wisconsin, options include painted racing stripes, red painted brake calipers, BBS forged wheels and a McIntosh stereo that complements the black interior. The GT has been stored in a climate-controlled garage since day one.

The Amazing Story Of How The Car Made It To Auction

The donor was watching the CW broadcast of the Xfinity race at Pocono in 2005. Blaney was the “driver commentator” in the booth and did a plug for the Ryan Blaney Family Foundation coming out of a commercial break. After learning about the foundation’s mission in the brain health space and experiencing Alzheimer’s in his own family, the donor reached out to the Ryan Blaney Family Foundation to get the process started on donating a 2005 Ford GT so the proceeds could directly support the foundation’s work.

To further raise funds, Barrett-Jackson offered to list the Ford GT at its 2026 Scottsdale auction, and it will hit the floor at WestWorld of Scottsdale on Friday, January 23. This is the second time Blaney and Barrett-Jackson have teamed up after offered a custom 1974 Ford Bronco that sold for $650,000 in 2020

The Ford GT was initially unveiled on October 17, 2025, at the Scottsdale Fall auction.

The Ryan Blaney Family Foundation was founded in 2018 by NASCAR Driver Ryan Blaney and his family. The Foundation is a registered 501(c)3 based in North Carolina and is dedicated to raising brain health awareness and resources to support people and families who are dealing with an Alzheimer’s disease or concussion diagnosis.

Ryan Blaney gave me an exclusive interview recently to talk about this incredible story and the individual who donated the car.

“We are very fortunate to have met the fine gentleman who has given us his GT, and it means a lot to him, and it has been a special car for his family for a long time,” Blaney told me. “He saw what we were doing, and he really liked what our foundation was about. He had some family members that, were dealing with some things that we’re trying to work towards. We’re very lucky to have crossed paths with him and very generous.

“It speaks on someone’s true integrity when they don’t want the spotlight. They just want to do right, and they want to help out for good causes. We’re very fortunate that he came into our lives.”

Blaney is one of several NASCAR Cup Series drivers that has served as a “driver analyst” of NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (previously, NASCAR Xfinity) telecasts on The CW. He was in the booth for the race at Pocono, Pennsylvania in 2025.

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Coming out of a commercial break, The CW allowed Blaney to talk about the Ryan Blaney Foundation to the audience.

“They let Ryan have a 10-second, 20-second piece where he could talk about our foundation and what we do,” Ryan Blaney Family Foundation Executive Director Patty Aber told me. “And I’ll tell you, it was like 15 minutes after he did that, I got an email from this gentleman who donated the car saying that he had lost a loved one to Alzheimer’s, and he was a huge Ryan Blaney fan, a huge Ford fan, and he was getting ready to move to Florida. He wanted to donate this 2005 Ford GT to the foundation so we could do good for Alzheimer’s with it.

“It was just that easy.”

Donor Remains A Secret

The individual practiced the art of charity by remaining anonymous and not accepting the credit for a well-intentioned act of kindness.

“That is exactly what happened,” Aber said. “He was emphatic about not wanting to use his name or even his location where he was from, anything to give it away. That this is just a gift from him in honor of this special person and just wanted to, in his words, he said, ‘We just want to see you do good with it.’”

The car was kept in pristine condition with a little over 4,000 miles on the odometer. It was stored in a climate-controlled garage with all recall updates completed.

“Oh, it’s amazing,” Blaney said of the car. “The 2005 Ford GTs are one of the prettiest cars ever made. It’s an unbelievable machine, and they really took a lot of pride on what they did and where it came from. And now what it’s also become, with the newer GTs, it’s an amazing story.

“It just so happened that I raced for Ford, so it’s a great fit. I got double lucky there. But they are beautiful cars, unbelievable performing cars and gosh I wish I had one I might have to buy this one I might have to do it for my own family we’ll see but well the role that Barrett-Jackson plays in this.

“It’s a brand, it’s a name that people know when it comes to the auction industry that if you want to find a car, a classic car, something that’s unbelievably cool that you go to Barrett-Jackson.”

Barrett-Jackson’s Involvement

Craig Jackson is the Chairman and CEO of Barrett-Jackson. His auctions have become a phenomenon in the automotive industry, attracting some of the rarest vehicles and the individuals that will bid a fortune to own them.

“We will end up this year, with about 6,500 registered bidders and about $2 billion worth of buying power,” Jackson told me in an exclusive interview.

Last January, sold the first ZR1 for $3.7 million. It was VIN-1 and the winning bidder was Rick Hendrick, NASCAR Cup Series team owner and one of the largest car dealers in the United States.

“He has bought a lot of the VIN-1 cars,” Jackson explained of the Vehicle Identification Number being the first car of that model manufactured. “We have other people that love the Ford products and will buy a lot of those.”

There are serious car collectors, and then there is the charity auction. At the upcoming auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, there are nine charity cars on the auction block.

Sometimes, that creates a very interesting scenario where the winners of the charity auction will donate the car so that it can go up for bid again and raise more money for the charity.

“My wife did a Driven Hearts Campaign for the American Heart Association,” Jackson explained. “I donated this very special Corvette, it was a 35th anniversary Corvette that was given to my mother. To give you a sense of what happens here, it was given to me by this gentleman as a everybody kept it secret until Sunday afternoon.

“This car was on the auction block they asked me to come to the block, and he handed me the keys he said, ‘For all the joy and everything you do for everyone here’s a 35th Anniversary Corvette.’

“Fast forward, he died of a heart attack, and the person that had bought so many other charity cars, he had died of a heart attack. So, we started this Driven Heart Campaign.

“That car got bought, resold, bought, resold, like eight times and raised a million dollars for essentially a $35,000, $40,000 car. I’m the last one that bought it when I bought it back at the end.”

About 30 percent of Barrett-Jackson’s car sales are individuals, that sold cars, then bought another car. Thirty-five percent of the bidders are first-time bidders.

But it’s the charity auctions that Jackson believes are the most special aspect of the Barrett-Jackson auctions.

“I have people that buy charity cars,” Jackson said. “If they don’t win, they’re in the hunt, and they’re on the phone, and they ask to stay that way. They are doing it for the cause. There are other people that are in the audience that we do a post interview. They’ll raise their hand, they’ll buy it, and they don’t want to come down for the interview.

“Some will turn the car back over and never get the car. It sells again, and they just stay, back.

“So, it’s about the cause. A lot of people care about the causes, and the publicity is really about the charity.”

Barrett-Jackson started as a charity car show before it evolved into an auction 55 years ago.

“Charity has always been part of what we do,” Jackson continued. “Then when Ford wanted to sell the VIN No. 1 of the first GT 500, we came up with this because we were doing it previous on another car, and the guy came back to me afterwards. He told us, ‘I wrote the check to you, and then you wrote the check to the charity, but I don’t get the write off.’ So, we started by having the winning bidder send the proceeds straight to the charity.

“We have nine charity cars in the auction at Scottsdale. We’ve been doing this since the first GT 500, and we’ve raised $164 million net doing this, more charity. We get a lot of applications, and we have to vet their charities, make sure they’re a good quality charity that the majority of the money is all going to the charity.

“That is part of our philosophy here at Barrett-Jackson.”

The Charity Auction aspect of Barrett-Jackson began 20 years ago and has generated significant contributions to a variety of special causes.

“Oh, it’s unbelievable,” Aber said. “It’s such a gift because I’m sure they’ve explained to you on their charity cars, there are no fees involved, no commissions so 100 percent of the block price will come to the foundation so whatever it goes for is what we’re going to get and that opens up so many doors for us.

“We’re a pretty small organization doing the best that we can to get individuals and families and caregivers, and this will allow us to reach so many more people and help so many more people.

“I want to say what a good family, the Blaney’s are. Salt of the Earth people, so good with their time, so good with their resources. You get what you see, and I’m just blessed to work with them, and couldn’t say enough good things about them.”

The CW Helped Blaney Spread His Message

Blaney appreciates The CW, which televises every race on the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, for giving him the 10- to 15-seconds of time out of a commercial so he could tell the TV audience about the Ryan Blaney Family Foundation.

That began a chain of motion that will continue with the 2005 GT auction on January 23.

“NASCAR and its TV partners including The CW always do a great job of letting us talk about our personal platforms and things that we have upcoming,” Blaney said. “It was nice for him to find out that way. The donor just turned it on a race and really enjoyed what our foundation was like.

“You never know who is watching, so that was really important and thankful for the broadcast folks for letting us get our message out there.”

The Importance Of The Ryan Blaney Foundation

The Ryan Blaney Family Foundation is a perfect name for this organization because Ryan Blaney is part of a racing family. His father, Dave Blaney, was a racing star from Hartford, Ohio and competed in his first NASCAR Cup Series in 1992. He became a fulltime competitor from 1999 to 2014. Ryan Blaney’s first NASCAR Cup Series race as in 2014, he ran half the schedule in 2015 and became a full-time competitor in 2016.

He won the NASCAR Cup Series Championship in 2023 at Team Penske.

Ryan is proud to represent the Blaney family and that is one reason why the foundation name reflects that.

“Well, it’s very important,” Blaney explained. “I’m really lucky to have grown up with a really close family. When we started the foundation, the biggest thing of why we wanted to do it is our main focus was Alzheimer’s and Dementia because my grandfather had Alzheimer’s. We saw how tough of a disease it was from our personal experience. We wanted to do all we could to help. When the timing was right, this is what we did.

“The reason why we call it the family foundation is a lot of my family is involved in the day-to-day stuff, between myself, my mother, my cousins, my sisters, my wife, a lot of people are involved in it, and they run the account of the operations. It’s very important to have that.

“It’s been a heck of a journey over the years of getting to meet a lot of amazing people and make a small dent and trying to continue to find ways to whether it’s caring for these people who are suffering from this disease or research, of how to get one foot in the door of where we start and try to fight this disease.

“It’s been a great journey. It’s been fun to do it with my family.”

Ryan Blaney And NASCAR Helping Others

It is also important that Blaney and many other NASCAR use their notoriety to help others.

“I think we’re in an important position and a very lucky position to have somewhat of an audience, to get a little bit of reach and some legs when, there’s some things that are important to you and your family, to get some reach,” Blaney said. “You connect with a lot of people. I’ve connected with tons of my fans through the years since we started the foundation of, ‘Hey, my parents or grandparents or siblings, had Alzheimer’s. We have a very similar experience of what you went through.”

“You connect with people.

“I’m so very lucky to have an audience where we can get our message out there and been equally fortunate that people have listened.”

The Ryan Blaney Family Foundation will be able to help more people after the 2005 Ford GT rolls across the auction block in Scottsdale, Arizona on January 23. It is expected to generate some hefty bids with 100 percent going to charity. Somewhere in an undisclosed location, a man who wishes to remain anonymous began this act of charity by donating the prized car that will help others dealing with Alzheimer’s.