Free days out you blagged/won/ got given

I live a stones throw from the London to Brighton route, and when I had my Mini the local club went mad on it, on the other hand I refused to pay a lot of money to drive on a road that I drove on every day, to park on a road that was free to park on. As the date grew nearer I sort of wished id paid up, just for the buzz, so I decided a couple of days before that I would go in the convoy anyway. The night before the big day a nice young lady knocked on my door and asked if that was my mini parked outside. I told her it was and she said she was due to do the L2B run but her mini had broken down so she couldnt do it, would I like the tickets. I offerd her some money but she refused saying it was better than putting them in the bin. The car got a full valet at about midnight.

I've been to Land Rover Eastnor a few times times for a run around the experience track, in the past we've bought a few second-hand Discovery's from the the local dealer.

I was asked at work to organise a customer event, so chose to do a day at Thruxton, formula Ford, Ferrari 355. Got an invite to a launch event for the original Mondeo, again at Thruxton. I've done the Palmer sport thing as well as a company event, Lotus Elise, Caterham, big truck.

Driving round Eastnor was the best though.

My friend was at a JEC or JDC meet years ago and won the competition for a few fast laps of the track in a Jaguar XJR. ?Silverstone?
At the end of his experience he fell out of the car and puked his guts up.
His chauffeur - Sir Stirling Moss.

Back in the late 80s I won a weeks work experience on Cars and car conversions magazine. The said week involved some work but mostly a press launch freebie to the launch of the FIAT Tipo and a race day at Aintree circuit.

More recently, one of my clients who is a major shareholder at Silverstone gave my partner and I access absolutely bloody everywhere tickets to the British GP, which probably cost as much as our house so that was nice seeing how the other half (or .5%) live.

Non car related another client who splits him time between Shakespearean drama and captaining a spaceship on TV gave me family tickets to see him doing his day job at the RSC. That was nice.

I got given four passes for a big bike race at Donington - British Superbikes or something like that. Top-notch grandstand, fancy hospitality tent full of free food and drink, the lot. Even though I'm not massively into bikes I was really looking forward to it. I couldn't go in the end because of a family thing. I lived fairly near and had to get on the M1 at the Donington junction anyway. So we stopped just off the motorway, waved frantically at any bikes that were heading that way and gave the first 4 that stopped free tickets.

Won a newspaper competition a few years back, a driving day with Audi. Was pushing the quattro system and perfornace/handling it gave you, so a day driving round the Silverstone infield in TT VR6s, R4's and RS6s. The emphasis was on controlling in extreme conditions/circumstances, and to do that you had to make the car misbehave..... We were paired up with another guest, and the format was the instructor would talk and demo, and then you would have a go. My co driver cocked one manoeuvre up badly he spun the car 180 and we were doing about 50mph backwards at one point.....

At the end of the afternoon the instructors (all Swedish ex rally drivers) took us out on the main track for a demo lap. One lass was almost sick as she got out....

A company i used to work for sponsored our (now long gone) local speedway and those that were interested were invited for an evening of "hospitality". Now 2 wheeled things with engines arent my thing but it seemed like a decent enough reason for a free evening out with the lads. It was my first experience of speedway and was thouroughly enjoyable ,we had access to the garages and riders and for the final race of the night we were invited to watch from the infield. If you think its spectacular watching from the perimeter , its nothing compared to having the loons tearing around you. The sound , the smell , the airborne debris.... all good stuff!!

20 years ago when I was in my teens I went with my parents on holiday. I didn't want to, but I wasn't allowed to stay home alone yet.
To please me, dad took me to a day at the races at Assen, the 2nd big Dutch track. When we arrived at the track, we ran into my dad's old boss, who was sponsoring one of the bigger teams in the Dutch touringcar championship. He invited us to come with him. So instead of a plastic seat on the outside of the track, we now had full hospitality all day. Watching the start from the pitlane, being taken around the team and the cars and drivers.

Had an absolutely awesome day and that fixed the whole holiday problem! I'll have to dig into the box of photos to find the photos I took that day, but it was so cool seeing all the local heroes I only saw on TV.

Couple of years later Toyota ran a Yaris Cup and the new boss of my dad was an avid racing fan as well. My dad blagged special vip tickets for the Marlboro Masters of Formula 3,which back then was considered as one of the 3 big races in F3, next to Macau and Monaco. Again we where taken around the pit area, could see all the stuff going on, whilst being fed and watered all day! Saw the Marlboro demo team, with the F1 Ferrari, Tommi Makinen Evo6 and the 2 seater 500cc Bike.

Once again... Brilliant day out for a 16 year old car nut. I will never forget the ferrari f1 car screaming past and vibrating the tape in the camcorder I took.


//edit : I had to get upstairs and look trough the box of old photos that 15 year old me took!

I don't have a scanner, so this is the best I can do.