We're pleased to bring you a report from this year's Ride in a Ferrari event, straight from the organiser, Roy Twycross. Once again, the event was well organised and well attended by the public and by members of the JTSMA and raised a fantastic £2600. Well done Roy and all your helpers! Over to Roy...
I am writing the beginning of this review after just sifting through 2003's copies of Ferrari News. I see that there has been an increasing amount of charity-based events whereby members of the FOC have given up their Saturdays and/or Sundays to give rides in their cars in aid of one good cause or another. I think it must be put on record that the efforts of every single Ferrari owner who is willing to share the experience of travelling in such a wonderful car, is always greatly appreciated by those such as myself who organise these events.
However, Ride In A Ferrari 2004 went ahead at its new venue of the Wyevale Garden Centre, Owermoigne near Dorchester on Saturday 5th June. I was overwhelmed with the response from members to the 2003 event when we had 17 of Maranello's finest V8 machines attend and help raise £1700 for the Jennifer Trust charity. As mentioned before, this money went towards funding Family Care Days.
Ferraris ready for a spin
The format for the event is now well known and established but just to reiterate for any members who haven't attended or who don't know about Ride....we give rides to paying members of the public over a set road route for a minimum donation of £10 to the Jennifer Trust. This £10 is inclusive of all passengers if more than one person wishes to ride in a 2+2 car such as the 308GT4 or Mondial models we have had attend the event before. Very often we have found that it is small children who want to ride with Mum (or more usually) Dad and we are happy to accommodate this, if we have the cars and drivers available. The set road route gives the paying passengers a chance to experience what riding in a Ferrari is like for around 10 minutes and from our new venue at Owermoigne, includes a dual carriageway, some tight turns at the turnaround points and a long run on a two-lane road which seems to have been appreciated by owners and enthusiasts alike. I have always said that I promote the event on how much fun can be had by riding in a Ferrari and not necessarily by how fast it will go.
On the day itself this year we had 12 Ferrari's, two Porsche 911's and an Aston Martin Vanquish brought by Ben Oliver of Autocar magazine, who had given us a preview in the weeks before the event on the editor-in-chief's page. I had my one and only ride in such a car with Ben at the end of a very very long day. I was on-site from 8.45am until 5.45pm. The main news this year is that we raised £2600 for the Jennifer Trust to fund their continuing good works. (Nearly £300 of this was as a result of people Gift Aiding their donations.)
An Aston Martin??
The oldest customer we had this year was a gentleman of 89 and the youngest were a number of children who chose to ride with Mum or Dad in the only 2+2 we had, Tim Gosling's Mondial Cabriolet (thanks, Tim you knew you were going to be popular).
Particular guests we had this year were Dorset's Assistant Chief Constable who said "I'm just Adrian today and these are my two boys" We were also visited by a PC who gave a display of the equipment carried in an average Police car before setting up the Vascar camera speed detector towards the end of the day, just to prove how well it worked!
Top guest though, had to be Mr Jim Knight MP who is Labour MP for Dorset South. He was very interested in the work of the Jennifer Trust.
Jose Rogers with MP Jim Knight
Particular Ferrari's of interest this year were the F40 brought again by Gordon McCulloch (thank you so much for all your hard work) along with his 275GTB/4 driven by his friend John King. The 275 had an unfortunate "fail to proceed" incident during the day when John diagnosed that the fuse to the Fuel Pump had failed. The car was later returned to the venue and relayed home by the AA. Hope you got home OK John and how often can one person say that they broke down in one Ferrari only to be rescued in another? Going out to John on the side of the road meant that I was the only person who got to ride in a Fiesta at Ride In A Ferrari (thanks to my nephew, Scott who helped to ferry water out to John stuck under the blazing sun).
We had more help this year with organised marshalling but we still find it difficult to locate driver's at times during the day. We are thinking that the ID badges we gave out should just state DRIVER in big letters rather than have all the other information on it as well for next year.
Melissa in the Hot Seat
We had a prize draw again this year with the main prize of the 2003 Ferrari Yearbook going to one of our marshal's who was very happy to receive it.
We had a separate prize draw for the attending drivers which had consisted of two bottles of champagne. One of these was unfortunately stolen from under our table during the day but David Hollinghurst who is the manager of Wyevale Garden Centre came to the rescue with an alternative prize of a spade! The spade was won by Steve Crumpler from Shaftesbury who also claims the honour of being the first man on-site with a Ferrari in the morning. The champagne was won by Gordon McCulloch who attended again this year as did many who'd been to Wyevale last year. Well done to you both. The local Toymaster shop from Weymouth set up a stall on the site during the day and did a brisk trade in sales and they also donated the two runners-up prizes to the main raffle draw.
My thanks once again for this year, which saw the overall total that Ride In A Ferrari has raised go to over £11,000 in six years of running, to everyone who was involved or who supported a very busy and worthwhile day this year, you all know who you are. The provisional date for next year when David at Wyevale tells me we will be very welcome once again, is Saturday 4th June 2005. See you there!
The Cheque Presentation
Thanks to the event's supporters who helped with the printing and promotion of the event:
