Ferrari Mailing List: 15 years later on...

[Rick Lindsay (richardolindsay]

Hello Friends,

Digging through old documents yesterday, I realized that it was 15 years ago this month, that I began talking with Tony Nevoti at FoH about a Ferrari List factory tour. Later that year, 22 friends who had never met face-to-face converged upon Maranello. We met at some expensive hotel and gathered in the sitting room off the lobby. The paradigm of what it meant to know someone (non-Biblical usage) changed for us. It took only a couple of minutes of chatter until we realized that most of us had 'known' these folks, admittedly with unfamiliar faces, for a few years! Someone wisely brought name tags.

We were all younger then. Some were fatter and some were probably skinnier! I still had brown hair and hadn't yet been diagnosed with diabetes. Rui and Charles were still single.

Those who went on the tour may remember that our pre-16-year-old kids had to wait in the lobby. My two were 13 and 15, plus Tegan's friend Amy who was also 15. The girls turn 30 this year. Both are married and Tegan has a little boy. Allen is 28 and also married. He received his BS in physics like our List owner Steve Cook, and from the same university, New Mexico Tech.

I certainly was not the first guy to join the List but was early on in its history. I believe the List began in about 1995. I joined in 1996 shortly after meeting Phil Tegtmeier via the telephone. We talked about me buying a GTB. At the time, Phil was not wise in the ways of the internet. My first List friend was Peter Henrys in Melbourne. Peter introduced me to Formula 1. I was teaching at BHP in Melbourne on what happened to be the Grand Prix week. That was 1997, second year after moving from Adelaide. Peter bought grandstand tickets for me and I extended my travel to include the GP weekend. Instant addiction.

That same summer I became fast friends with Rui Gigante, Antony Shine and the two Charles Perrys. We all stay in touch today and have taken multiple holidays together. All of us have gotten older - some more than others. 

So as my children mature, my grandson approaches his 1st birthday and my 308GTB still performs perfectly (even with carburetors), I look back over these 15 years and wonder where we'll be in another 15. Certainly older, possibly wiser, perhaps even kinder. If still here, I'll certainly still cherish the great friends that devotion to this silly marque has gathered.

Happy Tuesday,

Rick Lindsay