What is the happiest day of your life? Most will say "my wedding day" or "the birth of my child".
The second happiest day of my life (if my wife Emma is reading this) was my trip to The Museo Ferrari. I have always had a love of Ferrari's, ever since my eyes watched a moustache driving a red 308 in Magnum PI, and Don Johnson sliding around in a Testarossa.
The museum is on the door step of Ferrari's factory in Maranello Italy, a whole town essentially dedicated to the prancing horse. My smile just driving into town was hurting my cheeks. The museum is a shrine to Ferrari's racing and road car history from the room dedicated to all of their championship success in F1 with 8 cars on show from the Prost- Schumacher-Raikkonen era it was so impressive that even Emma said wow.
I had a turn on the F1 simulator against another driver, and for those keeping score I beat him by 20 seconds.
Highlights for me were seeing cars that have been on my wall growing up F40 number 1, Enzo Ferrari, and the new $1,000,000 LaFerrari. The biggest buzz was seeing my all-time hero Ayrton Senna's championship winning McLaren (I know that's not a Ferrari.) It is something a massive race fan thought he would never see in the flesh; I would have done a cartwheel if there were not so many people around!
One memory I have that made me proud to be from NZ, was the helmet of the late Denny Hulme on full show in the museum. It was awesome to see the respect shown to such a great driver, and also another Kiwi, Chris Amon's F1 car so much history.
So, now I can say I have been to the home of my favourite cars, something I certainly won't forget.