We couldn’t believe how fast the weekend was going, Sunday already and the final day. Up, ready and back at the circuit early as usual for the morning run of pick ups from the Kennels and Hotel, plus several runs out to Lavant, all going smoothly as they had all weekend. 
Again things slowed down mid morning so the ‘humans’ set off on another little wander, this time down to Tesco. This great store recreated as a small supermarket in the early 60’s is a brilliant mix of fake period stock and items for sale such as sandwiches, chocolate and drinks, many of which are in vintage style packaging. It’s very popular especially as it’s the cheapest place on site to buy lunch!
We wandered around the stalls in the vintage village, a vast array of vintage clothing and accessories and car related goods and art. The SU carburettor stand was superb as a wartime bomb site, even the baby was in perfect period dress.
A trip around the vintage stalls couldn’t be made without a small purchase – note the change of hat since the earlier picture! This lovely confection of gauzy ribbon, raffia and ribbon flowers had come from Germany and again was a perfect match with Mario and the Sunday frock, it stayed on much better especially with getting in and out of the car all day, a lady must consider the practicality of these things.
Back to work and another busy period with everybody wanting to get into position for the big events of the day. We set of with some journalists and photographers who wanted to go out to St Mary’s, we hadn’t been right round the track yet and were pleasantly surprised at how easy and free flowing the perimeter road was. After dropping the passengers we spotted Craig and Kato having a break and watching the St Mary’s Trophy. We stopped and took a few pics of the on track action including ‘Little Regie’ who unfortunately had problems and run at the back although James’ was convinced that our ‘Regie’ with his 850 Dauphine Gordini engine would have been quicker.
The next thing on the timetable was the Dan Gurney Tribute parade which we had been very keen to catch all weekend, as Dan’s Westlake Eagle was one of Jane’s favourite cars and although we’d seen it at the festival of speed, we’d never seen it on the racetrack even though it would be only parading and not being driven in anger. However the taxi’s had been very busy and so we were good and started to make our way back to base. Fate took over though and the perimeter road was closed for the air display so we were trapped and so took the forced opportunity to watch the parade. Dan was driven first by Lord March and then by Tony Brooks, other significant drivers such as Jackie Stewart also took part.
Once we were ‘free’ we headed back to the taxi’s and spent the afternoon doing various runs and chatting to the drivers about their day. In no time at all, the meeting was coming to a close. We missed the presentations as we were still working and we were just finishing when Jochen Mass appeared wanting another ride to the hotel, after posing with the ‘team’ we set off on our final run, Jochen was charming as always and said he’d book us for next year. After we had left, Adrian Newey, quite often our final drive of the day turned up from the presentation of his TT win. Craig took him back in Kato and Adrian let them try out his winners laurels for size.
We headed back to the circuit for one last time, Mario had completed 280km and performed perfectly all weekend. We spend so long looking forward to this event and it seems to go quicker every year but we are left with wonderful memories of all the fascinating people we have met and the sights, sounds and smells of what is just the best weekend ever… until next year (we hope).
Mario the Multipla 
