Field of Dreams: Ride In A Ferrari 2008.
Roy Twycross, 10 June 2008
It has become something of a tradition for me to quote a song I heard after the event and to sum up my feelings about the day but this year I would like to say that I heard something that truly represented my vision behind organising the event on the day before. That song was She's The One by Robbie Williams. It really made me think about the friend in whose memory I have organised Ride In A Ferrari since 1999.
Before the event this year, I had organised for a Dress Down Friday or "mufti day" to be held at work and we raised an excellent £420 for the Jennifer Trust for Spinal Muscular Atrophy.
On the day, I arrived at 08:45 to find that the marquee tent we'd been offered had already been erected. I had been to collect the promised Roary the Racing Car goodies from our event supporter, Southern Motor Services. Not all the items were eventually won but they were claimed by staff from the Jennifer Trust to re-raffle at their Annual Conference weekend in July.
The car pictures, brochures and CD-ROMs we had donated prior to the event, didn't sell as well as expected and unfortunately we ended up giving away some items. The remainder of it was donated to the Dorset County Hospital to be divided up between patients or to be re-raffled by them.
We had an eventual turnout of 18 cars this year with again the majority being Ferrari ranging in age from that 275 GTB of the mid-1960s up to two examples of the 360 and of course the Enzo on show. I was pleased to see returnees to the event in the shape of Tim Gosling and Craig McEwan with the Mondial Cabriolets, which are always popular with people bringing small children to ride. As ever and as I said to a number of customers, we ask a minimum donation of £10 per car not per seat so up to three passengers can ride together. Tim Gosling also had the honour of taking out our oldest customer this year, a 93-year-old lady.
We made an eventual total of £1500 profit on a glorious sunny day to be shared this year between the Jennifer Trust as mentioned already and half the money goes to the Ridgeway Ward for orthopaedic patients at Dorset County Hospital. They set up a Resources Room for new staff and for patients to learn about orthopaedic surgery with my previous donation of £1225 and the money should help towards furthering this project.
Other cars we had attend this year included two Aston Martins - a DB9 brought along by a father and son; and a Vanquish brought by FOC member Graham Dann - with a Bentley Continental GT driven by Ben Oliver and a Bentley Continental Flying Spur from the Bentley Hampshire dealership in the New Forest. Prancing Horse Register member, Brendon "Taff" Jones brought along his Nissan Skyline too, which even he admitted proved surprisingly popular for rides. We also had the promised display of a small number of trikes during the day and my recent former neighbour brought his Porsche 928GTS to display.
We had not one but two local radio stations appear during the day - 2CRFM (Two Counties Radio) from Bournemouth and Wessex FM from locally in Dorchester. Each had either invited guests or run competitions to win a ride in the week leading up to the event and we saw a nine-year-old boy called Tom and his family enjoy the event and Tom given a ride in Noel Marsh's 360, later to be featured on the radio on the following Monday evening.
Wessex FM's winner Nigel Orme also got a ride with Noel and enjoyed a tour of the Ferrari Enzo.
Representatives from both radio stations were very impressed with not only the turnout and type of cars but with the way the day was put together and handled by our experienced helpers.
Many of those again were drawn from my family but I must make an extra mention of "Taff" Jones for his help with organising the queue for rides along with my niece Kelly, her friend James, her Dad my brother Keith and two Indian business colleagues of his who joined us and helped out as well.
We had four visits this year from the local patrolling Police officers in a traffic car and they interacted well with our younger audience who always seem fascinated to find out which button starts the Police siren!!
There were a few words with one driver from another officer who appeared in an unmarked Police car during the day but it was put down to enthusiasm and a potentially tense situation was handled well by all parties involved.
One particular favourite car of mine this year I am sorry to the Ferrari Owners Club and its' members to say, wasn't a Ferrari but the Bentley Flying Spur. I sat alongside Barry who brought it as he demonstrated the different ways you could listen to the stereo with settings such as Concert Hall, Jazz Club, Speech and just Normal listening, which I suspect most owners would use! He informed me that they didn't have a Continental GT to supply and "I had to bring this!". He also said it was on their demonstrator fleet for sale, but it cost £100,000.
I asked Barry when he gave me a ride in it whether I could sit in the "pilot's" seat on the return journey and he graciously agreed so I could drive the Flying Spur back into the field of dreams we had created for the day.
I also have to say I think the site worked very well for us for access and would look into the possibility of using it next year for what will be the tenth anniversary of the original event I organised in 1999.
On that point, I discussed with family and friends during the day that I am thinking of making that tenth anniversary event, the last Ride In A Ferrari I organise at least for the foreseeable future. It takes an awful lot of work as one individual to put the event together each year and as many have commented when reading the e-newsletters I sent out this year in the lead up to describe the organising and promoting of the re-launch this year of Ride In A Ferrari. It was suggested by some that the ride was better appreciated by the public at Wyevale Garden Centres on the dual carriageway we used near there and I will investigate the possibility of returning there as well for our anniversary year.
Final thoughts were that people asked if we were selling the Ferrari baseball caps myself and others were wearing and I will see if we can get some to sell in 2009; plus if we get an F40, F50 or the Enzo appear again and we are able to do rides, we might hold off until the end of the day and offer them at £20 a ride instead of £10 in the regular production Ferrari or guest cars to boost the takings and keep people interested until the end of the day.
On the Monday after the event, I had a Ferrari-branded envelope in the post with a Maranello postmark. It contained a printed card saying this was addressed to a Ferrari fan who'd shown their appreciation of the F1 team's efforts over the past few years by writing letters of congratulation and it contained a set of four postcards depicting Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa both at the wheel of their F1 machines plus in their race suits in a studio picture.
In closing, my enormous thanks once again to everyone involved.
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