Rhian Ramos races again in the Vios Cup—but this time it’s personal

She has that classic face that could launch a thousand ships. She gets paid for appearances, offered millions to act in movies and even more for endorsements. But this time she’s doing it for love.

Celebrated actress and television star Rhian Ramos will once again don the red Toyota racing suit and go wheel to wheel with a grid of 31 race-prepared Vios Cup racecars in the highly anticipated Toyota Vios Cup this weekend, May 24, at the Clark International Speedway. And she is giving you the chance to ride along with her. Seriously.

It all started three weeks ago when Rhian became my first customer after I offered myself up as a personal chauffeur in a Maserati Quattroporte to raise funds for a colleague whose 2-month old daughter needed heart surgery. The photo of her in the back of the Maserati was enough to send the bidding war into a frenzy. From a lofty goal of making P20,000, in that one weekend alone, the Maserati chauffeur drive had earned P234,000 just by ferrying folks around.

Other big time names with even bigger hearts like Iza Calzado helped out, as did Marlon Stockinger, Rovilson Fernandez,  Ryan Agoncillo and Juday, that by the end of my two-weekend stint, the car had fetched (both figuratively and literally) P538,000 for Alessandra’s operation. It also captured the hearts of thousands of people who in one way or another, helped us raise P200,000 during a charity auction and benefit concert last Sunday where Basti Artadi of Wolfgang, Louis Ramirez from Overdrive, Monty from Mayonaise, Joyce Pring, and Champ all performed.

One of those brilliant ideas came from fellow motoring scribe and Editor-in-Chief of AUTOCAR magazine, Ira Panganiban, when he asked Toyota Motors Philippines (TMP) if he can auction off sticker space on his Vios Cup car, which he will use to compete with alongside Rhian this coming Saturday. Amazingly, Toyota agreed. So long as it was not a competing brand, of course. Not that anything really competes with Toyota.

And just like that, in a few days of mentioning it we raised almost P100,000 from five sponsors: Lifeline Rescue, Gadgets in Style, Hola Magazine, Autodeal.com.ph and Red Rock Travel. Then we ran into a pleasant problem; we run out of space to sell. This is where Rhian comes to the rescue.

Rhian asked TMP if she could offer up space on her car for donations that would go straight to Alessandra’s operation. As she is a lot easier on the eye than my buddy Ira, TMP said yes faster than a Lexus LFA can hit a hundred. Which creates another beautiful problem. As we only have eight spots to fill, you’ll have to be quicker than Toyota if you want your brand to ride on board with the hottest thing on four wheels. If you want to bid, we will have an auction for sticker space on Rhian’s car on www.jamesdeakin.ph that will end midnight on Thursday as we need to put the stickers on by Friday.

But good causes aside, the Vios Cup promises to be the country’s most exciting racing series as there are some deeply rooted rivalries and old scores to settle among the competing Toyota dealerships who have ended up fighting over top drivers to represent them. The tension has already been brewing in the garages and wagers placed on who will be the first Vios Cup winner this weekend.

Best part is that it is free to anyone who would like to go and watch, plus I have 10 VIP tickets to anyone who wants to watch Rhian race to save a little girl with a broken heart. But I’m charging double if she beats Ira.