Dream Rides at Thirlestane Castle

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The Polar Bears were delighted to receive their third invitation to stage Dream Rides as part of the Motoring Extravaganza organised by the Borders Vintage Automobile Club in the beautiful grounds of Thirlestane Castle at Lauder in the Scottish Borders.  I started to send out invitations and advertise for “interesting” cars back in January and was heartened by the enthusiastic response from the 2007 participants and a number of newcomers.

 The Working Party, which consisted of Jim and Aly Harris, Brian and Helen Kirkness, Mike and Helen Webber, Brian Short, my husband Mike and I, had a pre-lunch meeting in March to discuss how we could improve the event and who could provide these resources.

 

Fools and bairns shouldn’t see half done work!

 

By the end of April I was in the fortunate position of starting a “standby” list.  My aim was to have 25 cars on the day offering as wide a range of cars as possible.  I knew there would be withdrawals and as soon as the Driver’s Packs were sent out they started to come in.  I won’t embarrass anyone by naming names but poor communications between couples and even with one’s self seemed to cause a number of double bookings and the non-car events won the day.  The Cobra owner had a most unfortunate experience – having sent the vehicle to be MOT’d the tester, for some reason known only to himself, decided that he needed to take it out on the road and promptly crashed it!  Throughout May new and exciting cars continued to present themselves so I was reasonably confident that I could meet my target of 25 on the day.  I really felt sorry for the owners of the 2 supercars who had suffered a whole series of misfortunes in the final days leading up to our Dream Rides.  Hopefully they’ll make it next year.

 Saturday 31st May brought blue skies and after meeting up for lunch 12 willing volunteers got to work setting out the garage area and erecting stands.  Thank goodness Brian Kirkness has mastered the art of doing the latter without the aid of instructions.  He also has to be thanked for devising a way of displaying our new Sporting Bears Dream Rides – Book Here banner.  Mike took the opportunity, with help from Brian Short, of ensuring that the mobile credit card machine was getting a signal.  Young Daniel was asked if he would like to fill the water barrels – a rhetorical question really and we all knew what would happen next!  The scorching sunshine meant he dried out again fairly quickly. 

 On returning home I printed out the final version of the Drivers’ Signing On Sheet which had the following cars: 

Neil ready to take Debbie from REACT into the show ring to promote Bears and our charities.

 

6 Ferraris – a 360 Modena, a 355, a Daytona, a 308 GTS, a Mondial and a Dino rep, a Lamborghini Countach, 3 Porsches – a 996 Turbo Tiptronic S, a 977 Carrera and a Boxster, an Aston Martin DB7 Volante, an AC Ace Brooklands, 2 Lotus – an Esprit V8 Twin Turbo and an Elise S2, a Lancia Delta Integrale, a Cobra AK 427 rep, a GP Porsche Spyder rep, 2 TVRs – a S1 and a S3C, a Morgan Series 2 4/4, 3 micro cars – a Heinkel, a Messerschmitt and a Scootacar, a Teal Bugatti Type 35 and the big daddy of them all a 4.5 litre Le Mans Bentley.  Surely something for everyone?

 

 

 At 5 am on Sunday the skies were still blue which was a good sign – or so I chose to think.  We arrived at Thirlestane just after 8 am to do the final preparations and it wasn’t long before the first car arrived – the Integrale having driven up from Whitby that morning.  My band of willing helpers soon followed – Brian as Garage Boss organised the cars, Iris, Helen and Wendy started signing drivers on, Keith and Ann set up the refreshment bar, Philip and Sally helped with notices and flag, Pat and Dick prepared the Cool Wall, Mike and Andrew talked safety with the drivers after I had welcomed them and given them their driver’s pack.  Pete and Cathy along with Jim and Aly drove up from North Yorkshire to help out while Brian and Helen, having performed their duties on the MG stand put on their Bears’ sweatshirts later in the day and found plenty to do.  Martin migrated from the Porsche stand for a while to do a stint on the Cool Wall. 

There was no evidence that he was exerting undue influence over young boys to vote for his own favourite marque – unlike last year at Knockhill!  We were againjoined by Debbie Brownlie, this year wearing her REACT t-shirt and also Jim Kelman from SACHD – the Scottish Association for Children with Heart Disorders.  Because of our successful fundraising last year we decided to nominate two charities to benefit from this year’s efforts.

 

 As Brian Short was giving his drivers’ briefing the clouds started to gather and the temperature to drop.  Rides started just after 11 o’clock.  A parade lap of the showground by a variety of cars was organised to advertise our Dream Rides. By mid-day there was a definite dampness. We moved the Cool Wall into the charity tent and changed our marketing tack to “Why not book a Dream Ride and get out of the rain and into a beautiful warm car for 20 minutes?”.  This of course was not appropriate for the Bentley, Teal, Cobra and Morgan which had no wet weather gear! 

 With the rain becoming increasingly heavy, water started building up at the main gate and we were asked to call a halt to Rides.  Other show participants started leaving in droves causing major problems for returning cars – some taking an hour to complete their Rides.  The Messerschmitt continued by having a 4x4 experience in his 3 wheeler much to the enjoyment of his passenger.  However by 3 pm it was all over bar the fun of tidying up in the wet. 

 Despite the weather we managed to give 51 Rides, the most popular being the Ferraris – Modena, Daytona and F355 – the Lambo, the Porsches, the Aston and all the Micro cars.  The Rides raised £1,375 while the Cool Wall and other donations brought in a further £300.  For the first time, we were able this year to ask the public if they would like to gift-aid their donation by simply indicating YES on the Passenger Indemnity Form and completing the name and address section.  This will mean that the two charities will receive an increased amount from the majority of the money donated for the Rides.

 I would like to thank most sincerely all the drivers for their generous support and all the volunteers for their unstinting efforts to ensure that the Rides ran efficiently, the drivers were looked after and the public were given a warm welcome as well as a memorable experience.

 Fiona Davies

 This e-mail from Andrew, the TVR driver says it all:  “I enjoyed my wee run.  I think I converted that young man from doting on high-pitched Ferraris to enjoying the baritone of real

British sports cars.  We’d been chatting as we went out the drive and he was dead cool etc, but his wee face was a picture when I went a bit faster up the hill from the showground.  There was this wee giggle and then ”Jees!” from the passenger seat.  Shows promise, that one... Things like that make it all worth it.  I don’t care about the rain.”