Some more details from the organisers down or up at Donington (Depending on whether you're a Northerner or Southerner.
Firstly, thank you so much for supporting the 2012 Donington Historic Festival. We have had a wonderful response from the clubs, and are very excited that so many of you have chosen to be with us this year. Please forgive the 'round robin' approach, but as we have so many clubs now registered this is the most efficient way of contacting you all!
I wanted to update you on a few things:
Ticket sales
I'm delighted to say that our car club ticket sales had, at the start of this month, already exceeded our total club sales for the 2011 Festival, so there should be a great infield area display from all the participating clubs for everyone to enjoy. Please remember that car club sales close at midnight on April 20th. Once ticket sales close, I will contact each of you to let you know the numbers for your own club, and the names of those who have bought tickets. This will enable you to plan your presence at the event. For clubs whose ticket sales are larger than they'd anticipated, this will give you the chance to plan your club area - and perhaps decide to bring along a marquee etc., if you've not already planned to do so. And for the small number of clubs whose ticket sales are lower than hoped, it will allow you to decide if the stand/marquee etc. that you may have thought of bringing will be necessary. We are very flexible on this, and will work with you to make sure that your club is represented in the way you want. If one club only has one or two members coming along, we will make them feel as welcome as those with dozens attending.
Ticket dispatch and infield parking passes
This will begin a couple of weeks before the Festival, giving those of you who have bulk-ordered and need to send them out to your members time to do so. Each pair of tickets comes with one infield car pass (for club appropriate display vehicles only), and should you know of any members who need more infield passes (i.e. for two people who have bought a pair of tickets between them but are planning on arriving in two cars), please let me know their name and address and I will arrange for an additional vehicle pass to be sent to them separately. It's important that we know this as soon as possible, as this will give us the total numbers of cars for your club (at present we assume one car for every pair of tickets).
Parade laps
I will be contacting those clubs who want to take part in parade laps once club ticket sales have closed. Please note, we are limited to just 100 cars in each parade, and one parade on the Saturday and one on the Sunday. With 50+ clubs registered (though not all choosing to take part in the parade) this means that we are likely to be restricted to just one or two cars per club per parade. I wish it could be more, but we just don't have the flexibility on this, I'm afraid. I will be liaising with the person you have nominated to handle parade laps but also copy you in. The choice of which car/cars goes out on the parades will be up to the club. We suggest that you choose something that really represents you well, but will happily leave the tricky diplomacy to you...
Sir Stirling Moss
I am delighted to announce that on the Sunday of the Festival, Sir Stirling Moss will be giving demonstration laps at lunchtime in the C-type Jaguar in which he won the 1952 Reims Grand Prix for sportscars. This was the first-ever race victory in a disc-braked car, a landmark event which cemented the Jaguar marque’s reputation for innovative engineering and helped to make disc brakes the universal technology they are today. Stirling will also be signing autographs on the Sunday. Other star cars and drivers due to appear over the Festival weekend include Le Mans and Daytona 24 Hours winner and ex-Formula One driver Jackie Oliver, while Lukas Hüni will drive his SEFAC Ferrari 250 GT SWB – the car that Ricardo and Pedro Rodriguez took to victory in the 1000km of Paris in 1961. Mark Knopfler, of Dire Straits and ‘Sultans of Swing’ fame, will be sharing his AC Ace with Alain de Cadenet. And keep an eye out for Jonathan Turner’s fabulous 1935 Squire Short Chassis in the ‘Mad Jack’ race for pre-War sportscars.
Lands' End Corporate & Teamwear Offer
Finally, we have an offer we would like to share with you from one of our partners. As you may already be aware, Lands' End Corporate & Teamwear are once again our official clothing sponsor and will be providing our event team with branded uniforms for the Festival. In case you're not familiar with Lands' End Corporate & Teamwear, they offer high quality, corporate clothing and events wear, embroidered with your club logo and backed up by a market leading, lifetime guarantee! To celebrate this partnership, they wanted to offer all of our partners an exclusive discount off any uniform or teamwear you might want to order - either before or after the Festival - so are offering a generous 10% off and free logo set up, with only a minimum order of ten units. I have attached more information for you. NB having been wearing my Festival fleece frequently since last year's event, I can personally testify to the quality and durability of their products!
I will be in touch with you again very soon - and look forward to seeing your club members out at the Festival and hopefully to meeting many of you.
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