ROANOKE, Va. – If you travel nearly 500 miles northwest of the Roanoke Valley, you’ll run into Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It sits in the heart of Indiana, but it now holds a special place in the hearts of a local Gold Star family.
It’s no coincidence the Indy 500 runs during Memorial Day weekend. The big event has a long history of honoring not just race winners, but military members and Gold Star families--including that of Drew Ross.
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The Rockbridge County grad and Lexington native was killed in action in 2018 while deployed in Afghanistan. Since forming the Drew Ross Memorial Foundation, the goal has always been to steer Drew’s story into positive inspiration.
“I said, you know, I’ve actually been wanting to get Drew’s name on some sort of a car,” said Drew’s sister Sarah Ross Geisen.
Thanks to a partnership between Legacies Alive and United Rentals, Sarah’s dream shifted into gear when she received a phone call on Good Friday, informing her that Drew Ross’ name would be displayed on the United Rentals car in the 110th running of the Indy 500.
“I was just sobbing,” Sarah said. “They were crying. I was crying. So it was just, it was just really,really cool.”
She and her family were flown out to IMS where they had the honor of revealing the stickers on the car to be driven by Graham Rahal.
“We get over to the transporter and they had me, you know, pull that off and two of my sons were able to pull it off on the other side. And it was, it was really surreal to see it,” Sarah recounted. “Graham realized that they were born just 22 days apart. So Graham looked at the date and said, ‘I was also born in January of 1989.’ And I was speechless.”
Rahal finished 20th in the race, but for Sarah and her family, it’s considered a win. Driving a Legacy in the Indy 500 that began nearly 500 miles away.
“Obviously not everybody there knew that Drew’s name was on this car, but you know, they see Drew’s spirit, you know, running around that track at 200 and some miles an hour. And there’s just a little bit of Dre wthere. And that, that’s enough for me, you know, just to put a little bit of Drew in as many places as we can,” Sarah said.