James and Ben Freeman watched cancer murder their Mum and Dad. They had stopped their lives to nurse their parents who got cancer at about the same time as each other. "It was horrific. They were in a lot of pain, there was no way they were going to survive, we were just waiting for them to die. They were stripped of their dignity and humanity," James says.

The impact of the death of a parent on a family is devastating. The impact of both parents dying within a short time of each other usually means the children, including grown-up children, change forever. For many, for many years after, they are not the same people as they were before.

James Freeman had a successful career in business as an entrepreneur and as an executive. To deal with the grief he channelled everything into doing something to honour them and, as it turns out, to making a giant contribution to killing the disease that killed them. Eventually, he came up with the idea for a rally across Australia.

Freeman's idea was to get men, women and others (but no animals) into cars costing less than $1000 — encouraging mainly dyed in the wool city folk, who had probably never driven on a dirt road before, to spend seven days on 3000 kms of Australia's most remote roads trying to get back to what passes for civilisation in places like Townsville, Cairns and Darwin. And while not mandatory, he suggested the drivers should be dressed as, say, bumble bees and the cars like moose.

In October 2019, a rag tag group of 46 with no idea of what they were doing and probably where they were going, took off on a spin from Melbourne to Townsville via hot spots like Noccundra and Birdsville. Freeman surprised everyone, including himself, by raising $103k for cancer research. Since then, James and his mates have raised $24m, meaning they fund the next highest ranked grants after the National Health and Medical Research Council.

So, on March 28 in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, whole families will be able to hop in their family cars and cruise to morning tea, then lunch, then home. It's $95 for two caps (baseball) and unlimited persons in your car. All teams have to raise a minimum of $500 to take part. All funds go directly to the Cancer Council. Entry and details at www.cancercruise.com.au.