Saturday was the (postponed) first National Ferrari Owners’ Day, hosted by the Ferrari Owners’ Club of Great Britain, open to all owners whether or not they were members. It was originally scheduled for 2020 but was delayed for obvious reasons. With a range of events and displays it was set to be an exciting day.
Despite being only 10 miles from home, it was still a relatively early start for a Saturday—or so my wife says: an 8:30am departure—although this was mostly due to the A45/A6 roundabout being closed due to road work. Hopefully this obstruction didn’t cause too many problems for other attending that may not have know about the closure.
Upon arrival I missed the entrance as it appeared to be for non-Ferrari’s, but as it was our nephew navigating for me, I couldn’t be too upset. So after a quick U-turn we were in and making our way to the runway experience parking area. We quickly regrouped with my wife, brother-in-law and his daughter, and said brother-in-law and I signed in and listened to the runway briefing. Following this, we wondered over and watched some of those who had entered into the Meguiars’ Pride Of Ownership Trophy tidy up their cars, cleaning some of the road grim off. We were also then in the right place at the right time to see an Enzo and an F50 arrived and line up in the Timeline.
Our runway experience was unfortunately delayed due to a medical emergency, which necessitated the landing of an air ambulance. There may well have been another cause of delay also, as after the first hour we were told it was going to be another hour before we would get out on the runway. We took this time to browse the auction, during which the niece and nephew were constantly asking questions about almost every lot (less so the cars, more about the memorabilia).
At 12:30, two hours after it was scheduled, we were able to roll onto the taxiway and line up for the first of our two runway runs. This was the first time since the accident three years ago that I will have driven in anger so I was rather anxious about the whole experience. Despite the nerves it was fantastic being able to just put my foot down, make a lot of noise, and go somewhat fast. There was a slight snag as we were queuing for our second run, my F1 pump warning light decided to start flashing and first gear would no longer reliably engage. Thankfully it wasn’t a total failure and first did come back to us (although it did decide to temporarily disappear on the drive home whilst waiting at some roadwork traffic lights). It seems that I will need to further investigate why the pump fails intermittently.
After a quick pack-lunch whilst watching the third runway group speed back-and-forth, we popped back to the auction to watch some of the bidding, but we didn’t hang around long as we heard them firing up the aeroplanes for the Warbird Air Display. There’s nothing like a quartet of World War 2 planes performing in the air to make several hundred spectators forget about the hundreds of Ferrari’s they’re standing around.
With the air display over and the sun bearing down on us, we agreed to have a walk through the Ferrari parking area to give the kids a final opportunity to get some photos before departing. We were far from the first to leave—at one point we noticed there was a queue of Ferrari’s waiting to get out. All in all, a wonderful day: hundreds of Ferrari’s, including some very rare models, the weather was superb (a day of glorious sunshine sandwiched between two days of rain), and both my wife and I ware building post-accident confidence—her being around Ferrari’s and for myself it’s about getting that speed up (where appropriate of course).
Anyway, here’s some of what we saw:
