I’ve done it. I’m in. My legs barely work and I can feel the column of sweat running down the length of my back because I’ve spent the past 30 minutes or so squatting behind a tire wall waiting for just the right moment. It arrives when the festivities begin and the guards in the tower behind the Shell station avert their eyes. I take my chance and walk with my arms crossed to cover my wrists and my chest so no one sees I lack all of the necessary credentials to be at the track.
The track is Fiorano and it’s June 24th, 2007, approximately 60 years after a man named Enzo founded one of the most recognized car companies in the world. I wander up the side of the track and mix with the “regular” crowd. This was no simple birthday bash as people in 599s and F40s were being turned away from the gates. They needed a pass. Not me. I situate myself just in time to see synchronized jets flying overhead right before Piero Ferrari rolls onto the famed Italian circuit in a one-off, factory built replica of the first car to bear his father’s name. Michael Schumacher passes by in an FXX and Kimi Raikkonen does donuts in his F1 car.
When the show dies down I wander off to find what else I wasn’t supposed to see. I stop to take a picture of an F50 parked neatly along the track and duck out of the way of a couple 430s. There’s a F40 here, a 275 GTB there, and finally I approach the 250s. They represent an era of Ferraris so special they command millions of dollars at auctions and adorn countless bedroom walls. There’s a pair of 250 GT SWBs so beautiful they made my heart hurt. But just past those two sits the best of all — a Ferrari 250 GTO.
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