10.5.12

On the morning of Good Friday at South Lodge Hotel, Glenn Butt from Meridien Modena and John Wellard from Sussex Ferrari pulled back the covers to unveil the lovely Ferrari 458 Spider parked on the lawns surrounded by almost one hundred Ferraris.

At 10:45am the blue lights came on the police motor cycle signalling that it was time to get the Piazza Italia rally event under way, so with a police escort, the leading ten Ferraris drove away from South Lodge Hotel with the traffic being stopped both ways for them and all of the people taking part by Ringway Traffic Management. Swooping through the Sussex roads with a police escort – is there really any other way to travel? Popping down to Sainsbury’s just isn’t ever going to be the same again!

All ninety eight Ferraris fairly quickly arrived at Hop Oast on the outskirts of Horsham due to the organised despatch by Kate Horne and her band of marshals at the South Lodge start point.

At Hop Oast the arriving Ferraris were swiftly organised into their holding positions according to the coloured stickers on their windscreens by the group of police cadets and Ferrari marshals. Time to queue up for a (rather good) coffee before each of the three groups were escorted into Horsham Town centre by either a police car or a police motor cycle. Great, sweeping out onto the Brighton Road with all traffic stopped for us by a police 4x4 parked across the road – oh yes! Speaking to one of the officers who had just come from the town centre he said that the crowds were huge!

Following the escorting car and at the front of over sixty Ferraris in our group it quickly became obvious that today’s Piazza Italia was going to be something memorable as large crowds were at the side of the road waiting to see us arrive before we even reached the town centre proper and when we did – well – an amazing sight as the road ahead was empty but the crowds at the side of the road all the way in were just HUGE. The police estimated that there were some 15,000 people lining the roads in and as we drove into the final parking area called “The Carfax”, which is a cobbled wide market street, we were greeted by the playing of the Italian National Anthem. Quite a moving experience.

We fairly quickly got all ninety eight Ferraris parked up and for the next three hours enjoyed chatting to visitors. It seemed the worse that happened to any Ferraris was a few children’s clammy finger prints. Very good and a rather big relief as well, but then Piazza Italia has always been like that.

At 3:15 Pam and Suzanne Everingham blew their whistles (at least I think it was them) to signal the drivers to return to their Ferraris and the roads just cleared of spectators and at 3:30pm the massive gathering of Ferraris watched by an even bigger crowd were flagged off by the Lady Mayor of Horsham and one of her lady councillors.

What a day! Special thanks to all of the marshals especially Kate and Brian, the chief marshals, to the area group organisers who promoted this event to their members and to all of the members who took part in either or both events. Thanks also to South Lodge Hotel and Meridien Modena Ferrari for their sponsorship, Ringway Traffic Management for getting us underway and for closing all of the roads, to Sussex Police for their very valuable help and to Gary Mortimer-Cook of Horsham District Council for all his hard work in his part of the organisation of the Friday’s event.