Tuesday 4th September 2012

PH Sunday Service: 16/9/2012

A full day at Silverstone with Ferrari? We're really spoiling you with this one...

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We’re very pleased to announce that the next instalment of our increasingly popular Sunday Services will be taking place at the Ferrari Racing Days  event at Silverstone on Sunday September 16. We’ll be opening the doors to 700 lucky PHers who’ll be helping us repeat our traditional format (lots of cars, good banter, pork themed breakfast) but as guests of Ferrari and with a rather enticing sounding backdrop of all day on track Ferrari action.

Who wouldn't want to watch a field of 458s race?

Ferrari Racing Days will be at Silverstone over the weekend of September 15-16, and on Sunday the you’ll be able to see a packed programme of track activities including:

• A round of the 2012 European Ferrari Challenge Trofeo series
• The superb FXX and 599XX development programmes
• Modern F1 cars from Ferrari's F1 Clienti programme.
• Ferrari Club Challenge racing

The entry list makes for enticing reading. 16 599xxs will be running, there are four of the amazing Enzo based FXX, and the list of recent F1 cars includes Raikkonen's F2008, and Schumacher cars from '98 to 2008.

Off track, the race paddock at Silverstone’s impressive new Wing building will be open to spectators. Featuring other Ferrari car displays, a Ferrari store, F1 simulator and children’s entertainment zone, and there’ll be a display of Ferrari owners’ cars at the Stowe circuit in addition to all the usual broad range of vehicles you can see at a Sunday Service.

See track-only 599XX at Silverstone

We’ll be hosting our Sunday service parking area near to the old pit and paddocks, from where shuttle buses will be available to take you down to the Wing. Alternatively you can watch the action from one of the many viewing areas nearby.

The best news? Even though tickets are £10 per head to the general public, we have room for 700 cars, assuming two people per car, absolutely free! So that's 1400 PHers enjoying a great day out courtesy of Ferrari. Under 15s will not need a ticket, so bring your wife and kids by all means.

Plus, Ferrari are giving every PHer a copy of the event programme, worth £5, with your tickets (1 per car) thus liberating a further £5 to be spent on pork based breakfasts and/or Ferrari memorabilia.

We think that this has the potential to be our best Sunday Service ever, and we’ve said that about several in the past. Since Ferrari are being so generous to PHers, we’re going to try and give something back. On the gate when we check you in will be representatives from Mission Motorsport, run by PHer and all round good bloke Jim Cameron. Mission

Enzo-derived FXX will also be on show

Motorsport’s aim is to use Motorsport to help with the rehabilitation of injured servicemen and women. Dan and I shared a car to Le Mans with a couple of their chaps, the cause is a great one and we’d encourage you to dig deep on the gate and chuck some change in their buckets. Entirely voluntarily of course.

So what next? Sign up now on our calendar, and we’ll be in touch with more details in due course. Each place on the calendar entitles you to one car and two adults, plus any under 15s you'd like to bring with you. Hurry - we get the feeling that this one is going to fill up faster than anything we’ve done yet. 

[Stuart]

Roll up roll up. Tickets for this one are going to go VERY fast indeed we think.

[Stuart]

ph1l5 said:

Hold tight I think its Goodwood that weekend

It is. So if you're at Goodwood on the Sunday, then this isn't for you I'm afraid.

[Stuart]

There are already people putting "+2" on the calendar, so I'll reiterate what the story says:

1. We have a total of 1400 free tickets.
2. We're assuming that one car = 2 tickets, and we have no capacity to keep track of numbers beyond this. So we've capped the list at 700 cars.
3. Under 15s do not require a ticket.
4. If you want to bring more than 2 adults, you will need to sign up for another place.

Not the most efficient way of doing it I realise, but as entry is governed by event tickets and car parking spaces, this is the best way of avoiding having to turn people away on the day.

So, 1 car = 2 adults.

[Stuart]

giblet said:

So I need to sign up twice in order to bring 3 people? Best get a mate to sign up. Would be easier if we could just pay a tenner at the gate for standard entry for the extra passenger but guessing you guys have a list of rules to stick by.

Basically, yes. As I've said, not ideal, but the most practical way of ensuring we don't have any disappointment at the gate.

[Stuart]

Minemapper said:

Question. Will they be letting Chris Harris in?

Racing at Spa that weekend, otherwise yes of course they would.

[Stuart]

BoxsterEtype said:

Will I need to pay for the 15 college students I wish to fetch? Pleas say no as they are hungry, penniless students who will bate me for weeks if I ask them for a contribution...

2 adult tickets per car, no exceptions. Sorry.

[Stuart]

edc said:

You can't sign up twice if you are brining more than 1 passenger.

Correct. Your passenger would need to sign up as a separate car. 1 car = 2 adults.

[Stuart]

CraigMST said:

Right, if I want to bring 2 passengers does the extra passenger have to sign up and put the same car as I will be driving?

It'd be a waste of fuel for a second car to come down you see.

It doesn't matter what car they say they are coming in, we are checking names. One name on the list = 2 adult tickets.

[Stuart]

Waugh-terfall said:

ali_kat said:

Waugh-terfall said:

I've put my name on the list and looking to re-arrange the Twizy for later in the day, or the day before. Might bring the PH management team lots of chocolatey goodness...

Be good to see you

BTW - they like home made brownies & muffins And hot sausage rolls & coffee

I'll get my apron on and my baking trays greased then.

Actually on this occasion we'd genuinely prefer it if you saved the cash and chucked it in the charity bucket for Mission Motorsport. We're trying to raise as much as we can on the gate for a great cause.

[Stuart]

DEFINITELY put your name down. That list will drop as people decide they can't make it. If you are under 750 then I can guarantee that between now and next week you'll get in. Don't delay!

Holy crap, we've filled a 700 car Sunday Service in just over three hours.

[Stuart]

Charlie Michael said:

How far are off Jalopnik are we for biggest car based site in the world?

How far off PistonHeads are Jalopnik for being biggest car based site in the world you mean? We're significantly bigger than Jalponik.

[Stuart]

Waugh-terfall said:

PistonHeads gets about 3 million unique users per month, Jalopnik get an estimated 4 million.

According to their media kit, they get 1.6m per month. We're closer to 4.5m now. However a big proportion of our visitors are forum/classifieds traffic, whereas almost all theirs is to news traffic. So it isn't really an eggs with eggs comparison - they've a bigger editorial product, we've a bigger community product.

Either way, we like the Jalopnik chaps and what they do immensely.

[Stuart]

Waugh-terfall said:

Haymarket website needs updating Jalopnik info seems to vary, ebizmba reckon 500,000 as of this month, though there's that 4 million I found, but then I've just been on Alexa.

Haymarket's website does need updating. However I would also not trust a single thing you read on Alexa. Woefully unreliable as a source of useful data in my experience.

Google Trends is a little more reliable, but still prone to understatement since it doesn't see direct traffic, and therefore makes assumptions. That has us at about 4m unique visitors, and Jalopnik at roughly 2.5m (I think. The graph scale is very small).

Anyway, as I've said, a slightly pointless comparison because of the difference in how both sites generate traffic.

Can we get back to talking about our Sunday Service now please?

[Stuart]

greggy50 said:

MSTRBKR said:

Anyone without a computer at work or can't access PH from work is going to arrive home extremely annoyed!

Use your phone its blocked accept lunch hour but can always gave a quick peek...

We did it close to lunchtime in the hope that people who can't browse mid-afternoon might have been able to get on the list...

[Stuart]

yorkieboy said:

Btw what is this world record attempt?

There's an attempt at the Guiness World Record for Ferraris on track at one time, on Saturday.

[Stuart]

RenesisEvo said:

Superb - I've signed up just in case (!) as I'm only 80% sure I can make it.

Two questions - does this mean there's no normal 1pm kick-out, i.e. we can stay all day if we choose?

Also, will I need to furnish Stuart with more Ferrero Rocher (I can't imagine there's many left from Sunday now)?

It is an all day meet - track action from morning until 6pm, so you can stay for as long as you want.

The sub heading was a nod to your kind gift on Sunday actually - I was ploughing through them when I was writing it. Nom and indeed Nom.

[Stuart]

ecain63 said:

Having been to the last PH SS, im convinced there was space for way more than 700 cars. Last time im sure we only filled 2/3 of the car park.

Correct, but the building itself was pretty busy, so I think we probably had as many people as we all felt comfortable with.

At Ferrari we're benefitting from their goodwill, and £14k of free tickets is pretty generous. 700 cars will take a heck of a lot of organisation and processing by our team too, so I'm pretty comfortable that this is a big enough task for us all to take on.

As Mermaid says, the job now is to remind people to check out again if they aren't going to make it after all. Worth also making sure that we have a correct email address for you too, as we'll be sending out instructions on what to do at the gate via this method.

Thanks,

Stuart

[Stuart]

Scooby Drew said:

I'm in!!! Well I'm on the list at 871

Fingers crossed for you then.

[Stuart]

ferrisbueller said:

In which case you could publish it at something more inclusive like 6pm, or later, for those who have to work and don't have access to the 'site during the day??

We might have to in future. 12:45pm gave most people a fighting chance during the lunch break we thought, and is one of the times of the day when we get a traffic spike similar (albeit not quite as big) to 6-8pm.

[Stuart]

skierandy said:

Am I right in assuming that if the 700 spaces are full, which they are lol, there is another way of turning up for a nose anyway?

Yes, you can buy a ticket. £10, and under 15s free. Which is very reasonable for a day out I think.

We've got over a week to get the numbers down though, so certainly worth sticking your name on the list.

http://www.silverstone.co.uk/events/Ferrari-Racing...