Day 0: Transit to Manhattan, Kick-off Party

[From 2009]

            Mark was flying from London, and meeting us in NY city.  Starting from Boston, Dan and Glenn would swing by Long Island to grab the McLaren from storage.  They just picked up the Scuderia 16M from Ferrari of New England, where it had 213 miles on the odometer.  The paint is a custom pearlescent white (for which Ferrari kindly charged more than the MSRP of a Toyota Prius) with red leather interior.  This outré color combo is not Dan’s typical style, so I’ve taken to calling him “Paris Hilton”.  Perhaps it shows just how slightly deranged we are in that we’re planning on sending the slate gray 612 Scaglietti ahead as the “stealth” vehicle to sniff out trouble. 

            To utterly no surprise, the first kink in our plan had cropped up already.  Bertone had been doing high-speed tests of the Mantide at the Nardo test track in Italy.  It was to have been shipped back to NY before our departure, but thanks to the airline somehow losing the paperwork, it was stuck in Luxembourg.  Now it was supposed to arrive at JFK on Sunday, but it would have to clear customs, so it’d be Tuesday at best before we could pick it up, but it could well be delayed further.  Do we delay our departure?  Have it shipped from NY to St Louis to meet us?  Draft another friend to drive it out?  We decided to play it by ear, and press on regardless.

            The team finally all rendezvoused in Manhattan, where we had a kick-off dinner with friends and family at Alfredo of Rome at Rockefeller Center.  The cars parked on 49^th St caused the first of many, many commotions of the trip, with tour buses leaning to the side as everyone pressed faces against glass.  After plates of Fettuccini Alfredo, we surprised Dan with a custom made cake in the shape of the Mantide, then headed for the hotel for a good night’s sleep – the most sleep we’d get for the week, as it turns out.