Last year, you may remember Clive Bury telling us about the day he volunteered to help at The Supercar Event, held at Top Gear Testing Track, Dunsfold Aerodrome, Surrey. To read his blog and learn more about the history of this amazing event, click here.
This year, Cleankill didn’t just send one volunteer to this event, it sent four! Director Jon Whitehead, Technician Richard Morgan, Sales Manager Mike Williamson, and myself, all happily gave up part of our weekend to help this amazing event in aid of The Children’s Trust.
Taking place on the 24th and 25th June, The Supercar Event brought together cars worth over £60 million pounds – one car, the Pagini Huarya, was worth over £2 million pounds on its own! Other cars collected for the event included: Ferrari F40, McLaren 570GT, Ferrari 488 Spider, Ariel Nomad, Mercedes AMG GTR, Ferrari 458 Speciale, Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera, and the Lamborghini Aventador SV. But this is just a small selection of the super cars on offer. In total 175 drivers gave their time, their cars, their tyres and their fuel, to help this amazing event.
Unfortunately, none of us owns a £2 million car, so we worked as part of the 300-strong team of volunteers that marshalled the event over the weekend. Jon, Richard and myself all helped out on the pre-paid ticket desk and lucky Mike got to help in the VIP area – you might have seen his picture with a certain celebrity driver!
We all commented on how well the event was organised. They are now into their eleventh year of running this event and we were amazed at their efficiency – by rotating the volunteers, we all got the chance to have a break, and the occasional ice cream!
Towards the end of the day, it was also arranged for volunteers to get discounted rides in some of the supercars – normally a ride cost £35 but for volunteers it was £20. £20 to drive around the world famous Top Gear Testing Track in a supercar seemed like an unbelievable offer, so we all had a go. I managed to get an incredible ride in a C11 FPA Ferrari Spyder and Richard was lucky enough to be driven by The Stig!
The organisers estimated that over 20,000 people visited the event over the weekend, including celebrities, such as Shane Ritchie and Phil Tufnell. The event was hosted by TV personality and former Big Brother winner Craig Phillips and racing driver Nick Whale.
In the thank you email I received from The Children’s Trust, they told me that they had raised over £105,000 from the event but that money was still coming in. Last year, their tenth anniversary, they raised over £120,000 in total. This is a fabulous amount of money for a very worthwhile charity.
Cleankill has long supported this amazing charity by raising money, helping redecorate the dining areas at Tadworth Court, and one brave staff member even jumped out of plane to raise funds! To read more about our involvement, click here.
To read The Children’s Trust’s press release about The Supercar Event, click here.
Chris Davis, Technical Manager, Cleankill Pest Control