RESULTS: 2OO4 FORZA MILLE

This was the ninth running of our Forza Mille.

Like other events organized by Rich and Jean Taylor of Vintage Rallies, Forza Mille is a five-day, 1000-mile, time-speed-distance rally. The group stays in the best hotels Jean can find, eats in the best restaurants...even the wine list is great!

But Forza Mille is unique. While other vintage rallies are restricted to cars built 1975 or earlier, Forza Mille is open to any exotic sports car of any year. What's that mean? Well, in 2004, it meant everything from a 1957 Aston Martin DB-2/4 to a 2004 Ferrari 575M. This year's group was split almost evenly between vintage exotics and current models, including not only Aston Martin and Ferrari, but Corvette, Maserati, Jaguar, BMW, Porsche and Mercedes-Benz, plus the lone MG-B of Vintage Spirit Award winners Bill and Gini Miers. Tackle a rally field that includes nine late model Ferraris with an MG...that takes spirit, indeed!

The ninth annual Forza Mille started Sunday afternoon, October 3, at the classic Basin Harbor Club in Vergennes, Vermont. This is one of the most famous resorts in New England, on the shore of Lake Champlain. It's been in the same family for over a century.

Each couple had their own cottage overlooking Lake Champlain, nestled in Basin Harbor’s extensive grounds. There's a golf course, pool, tennis, fitness center and the usual high-end resort amenities—even their own airfield and the nationally famous Champlain Maritime Museum. Sunday afternoon we took rides on Lake Champlain in Basin Harbor’s vintage mahogany cruiser.

Sunday night, we had dinner in Basin Harbor’s main dining room, overlooking sunset on the lake.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4 Our trip began with a lavish buffet breakfast at Basin Harbor Club, then driving to lunch and eventually to the Aerial Tramway at Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire. From the observation deck of this 42OO foot peak, you can see into Maine, Vermont and Canada. Our afternoon drive through the scenic White Mountains of New Hampshire brought us to Mountain View Grand.

Mountain View Grand is a newly-restored 1865 Grand Hotel surrounded by a golf course opened in 19OO and restored in 1999. Other amenities include a heated Olympic pool, tennis, fitness center, spa, horseback riding and all the usual high-end resort touches. Monday night, we had dinner in the opulent High-Victorian Felicia Rose ballroom.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5 Tuesday, we made a super drive south and west diagonally across New Hampshire and Vermont, over Crawford Notch and mountaintop Kancamagus Highway. Our destination was the National Historic Landmark American Precision Museum in Windsor, Vermont. Housed in the nineteenth century Robbins & Lawrence factory, this is where precision machining that allowed mass-production was begun.

Lunch was at the Corvette Museum in Springfield, Vermont, then we drove over the Green Mountains to the Wilburton Inn outside Manchester. The Wilburton Inn is a marvelous small Inn overlooking a miles-long-view, with luxurious rooms and a gourmet kitchen. Dinner and overnight accomodations were at The Wilburton.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6 After a leisurely buffet breakfast at The Wilburton, we had a free morning to wander around Manchester, Vermont. Some rallyists drove the Mount Equinox Auto Road, some visited Robert Todd Lincoln’s extravagant Hildene estate and garden to see the new Civil War exhibit and some indulged in Navigator’s Revenge at the many outlet stores in nearby Manchester, Vermont.

After lunch at a Colonial tavern, we headed south on little-known and infrequently-travelled Berkshire Mountain roads to the turn-of-the-century resort of Lenox. On the way, we stopped at Brian Donovan's famous Jaguar restoration shop.

Our destination was The Cranwell, a terrific luxury resort perched on top of a hill in Lenox, in the middle of a private golf course. It's one of the premier four-season resorts in New England. Dinner and overnight accomodations were at The Cranwell.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7 After a cruise ship-style breakfast at The Cranwell, we headed back north, repeatedly criss-crossing the Green Mountains, with sports car roads better than any you’ve ever imagined. This was our big finish, stopping at the fascinatlng shop of Peter and Stephan Markowski at RPM in Vergennes, Vermont. At the end of a wonderful drive, we returned to Basin Harbor Club for our Victory Banquet and overnight accomodations.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8 A leisurely gourmet breakfast at Basin Harbor Club, and the Forza Mille was over...except for new friends and great memories!

RESULTS: 2OO1 FORZA MILLE V-12

Forza Mille V-12 is an annual charity rally just for twelve-cylinder machines. This year was the sixth running of this unique event, which started and ended near Portland, ME and covered 1500 miles, mostly in Nova Scotia. The most pleasant surprise was the weather. Nova Scotia sits in the warm Gulf Stream, so even in October every day was bright and sunny, temperatures in the Seventies.

Entrants in 2001 ranged from two massive pre-war Packard V-12s to a brand-new Aston Martin DB7 Vantage V-12. Among the 40 cars were three Ferrari 250 GTs from the Fifties, another six Ferraris from the Sixties, two Jaguar XJ-S V-12s, two Ferrari Testarossa Flat-12s, two Ferrari 550 Maranello V-12s, two BMW V-12s and six Mercedes-Benz V-12s.



All forty rally cars, plus eight Mercedes-Benz support vehicles, a truck carrying everyone's luggage and two fifth-wheel car haulers driven by two-man teams of mechanics boarded the 475 foot Scotia Prince on Saturday evening, September 29. Overnight, the Scotia Prince whisked us from Portland, ME to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to begin our drive.

Sunday morning found us driving along the coast of the Bay of Fundy, famous for its 40 foot tidal change. We stopped in the cute scallop-fishing port of Digby and the early colonial capital of Annapolis Royal.



Our overnight stop was at Pictou Lodge, a gracious Nova Scotia seaside resort built in 1926 and recently restored. With absolutely clear weather, a full moon shining over the water and discrete lights twinkling from the log-built main lodge, Pictou was achingly picturesque.

Monday brought us to the Acadian fishing village of Cheticamp for lunch, then all the way around Cape Breton Island on the famous Cabot Trail. This follows the rugged coastline through Cape Breton Highlands National Park. A hundred years ago, telephone inventor and local resident Alexander Graham Bell said, "I have traveled around the globe...but for simple beauty, Cape Breton outrivals them all." Happily, this incredibly scenic area is little changed since Bell's heyday.



We were one of the last cars into Sydney Monday evening. The sun was just setting in a spectacularly pink-streaked sky, a brightly-lit cruise ship was casting off from a berth next to our waterfront hotel, a country music band was playing in the park beside our parking lot and hundreds of Nova Scotians were checking out the impromptu car show. As one local enthusiast gasped, "I've been reading Car and Driver and Road & Track for 14 years, and I've never seen a Ferrari in real life. And there're a dozen in this parking lot!"

We left Sydney the next morning, driving through the Bras d'Or lakes region to lunch at a brew pub in the trendy town of Guysborough. Sitting on the deck in the sunshine, we counted eight Eagles wheeling in thermals over the water. A lovely afternoon drive along the coast of the North Atlantic brought us to the Westin in downtown Halifax.

Halifax is a great mix. A colonial port, there are still wonderful neighborhoods with cobblestone streets flanking the colonial homes of rich whalers and sea captains. Halifax is also Canada's answer to Austin, a high-tech magnet for young, computer-savvy people from all over the British Commonwealth. It has a great, international feeling.

Dinner was a hilarious feast in a classic Italian restaurant, fueled by too much wine brought by Ferrari-loving waiters who couldn't do enough for us.



Wednesday morning, to the accompaniment of cheers by our waiters from the night before, we scooted quickly out of town and along the seacoast to the famous shipbuilding centers of Mahone Bay and Lunenburg. Lunenburg is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with dozens and dozens of restored historic buildings and the famous fishing schooner, Bluenose II.

That afternoon, we high-tailed it back to Yarmouth where we boarded a high-speed catamaran to Bar Harbor, ME. The Australian-built Cat cruises at over 50 mph, propelled by four gigantic jet drives. It's seriously cool. In Bar Harbor, back in the USA, we checked into the waterfront Bar Harbor Regency and downed a traditional New England lobster dinner.



Our last morning we spent rallying through picturesque Maine villages to Owls Head Transportation Museum. Forza Mille V-12 is a corporate sponsor of this world-class auto/aviation museum, so they rolled out the red carpet treatment.

A couple of lucky rallyists earned rides in the museum's 1929 Stearman biplane before we all headed off to the famous lighthouse at Pemaquid Point on the way to The Harraseeket Inn at Freeport for our Victory Banquet and shopping at L.L. Bean.

After five days of rallying, there was a three-way tie for first: Ron and Karen Materick, Mercedes-Benz SL600; Steve and Carolyn Bacen, Ferrari 360 Modena; Lou and Bobbi Bevilacqua, Ferrari 512 Testarossa. The Vintage Spirit Award went to vivacious Alina Porter and Flo Makofske, who bubbled through the week.

On the Forza Mille, every participant receives a prize. This year, prizes were one-of-a-kind sculptures much prized by collectors...shorebirds carved and painted by Canadian artist Paula Lentz.

Maryalice Ritzmann of rally sponsor Mercedes-Benz USA donated $10,000 to Maine's Camp Sunshine for seriously ill children in the Forza Mille name, rally participants pledged over $12,000 to the American Red Cross to aid victims of the September 11 World Trade Center disaster and the rally organizers donated to Owls Head Museum, the ASPCA fund for animals left homeless on September 11 and the Red Cross.

Rally organizers Jean and Rich Taylor like Nova Scotia so much, that they've decided to hold their tenth annual New England 1000 rally over a slightly shorter version of the 1500 mile Forza Mille route. New England 1000/Nova Scotia will be May 18 through May 24, 2002.

The seventh annual Forza Mille V-12 will be September 29 through October 4, 2002, starting in Vermont with planned overnights in Montreal, Mt. Tremblant and Quebec City before returning through New Hampshire to Vermont.



RESULTS:1999 FORZA MILLE V-12

What a party! The 1999 Forza Mille attracted a group of the most congenial people I've ever met. And that helped make the event super fun. We got together at The Cranwell in Lenox, MA, a hotel that runs like clockwork. The first thing we did was drive over to Brian Donovan's shop for wine and cheese and a look at his two large buildings full of vintage cars. Typical of the cool things were a D-type Jaguar race car and the Group 44 Jaguar XJS Trans-Am racer.

After dinner in the elegant Board room of The Cranwell, timing and scoring chief Iain Tugwell held his annual Famous Navigators School. After that, it was off to bed to dream of stopwatches, "squeakers" and "moose alerts."

Monday morning brought us, via an easy 2 hour stage, to Lebanon Valley Speedway where we got to make as many runs on the dragstrip as we thought the clutch could stand, then rocket around a demon autocross course.

Another stage took us to Saratoga, NY for lunch. After lunch, we drove to Bennington, VT and Hemmings Motor News to see a wild car collection that ranges from an 1885 Benz to a 1999 New Beetle. Transit stages brought us to Mt. Equinox, and then to the charming Old Tavern in Grafton, VT.

The next morning started with a short run to Ascutney State Park, where we put on our helmets for the Mt. Ascutney Hillclimb. The road up Ascutney is 3 miles of corkscrew twistiness through the woods. Our reward, a breathtaking view from the mountain top, was unfortunately blanketed by early morning fog.

From Ascutney, we stopped at the American Precision Museum in Windsor, had lunch at Bentley's in Woodstock, then took TSD stages to Peter Markowski's Ferrari shop in Vergennes, VT. After drooling over the dozens of vintage Ferraris packed in rows like sardines, we zipped to our overnight stop at Basin Harbor Club. We had a cute little house of our own, right on Lake Champlain, and were treated to a spectacular sunset over the water.

Wednesday, we drove a circuitous route over the mountains that eventually took us to The Chalet in Woodstock, NH for a yummy New England lobster feast.

For lunch, yet! Stuffed with fresh lobster, it was on to White Mountain Motorsports Park, a brand-new, paved oval track. Who would think a Ferrari or Mercedes could make like a NASCAR racer?

An hour's drive brought us to Bretton Woods, home of the imposing Mt. Washington Hotel. Dinner in the formal dining room was like a scene from Titanic, especially when the wind came up at midnight and rain started to swirl around this Victorian Grand Hotel. Awesome!

Thursday morning, we drove through rain to lunch at the charming Kedron Valley Inn. When we came out of lunch, the weather had cleared, and by the time we got back to The Cranwell, it was 70 degrees and sunny again. The best roads of the whole trip were in this last afternoon, Routes 8 and 8A in Northwestern Massachusetts.

The Victory Banquet was a scream. Dick David read a poem about the rally he'd composed before dinner in the bar. Steve Bacen won the Automotive Tie and Scarf Contest with a Ferrari tie that lit up in the dark. Steve and his wife Carolyn also won first prize in the rally, a $1000 charitable donation in their name which they chose to give to the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital. Paul Householder and Tammy Downey gave their $500 second prize to the Humane Society of Fort Lauderdale, where they live.

The organizers, plus rally sponsor Mercedes-Benz USA and individuals who contributed to specific charities, gave a total of over $25,000 to various charities in New England. In return, we all got crystal vases, Forza Mille V-12 hats, jackets and sweatshirts, and a variety of other gifts and presents from Mercedes and the organizers. The state of Vermont even gave us commemorative Vermont license plates.

In addition, of course, our real rewards were driving spectacular roads, seeing neat private collections and meeting some of the nicest people you1d ever hope to come across.

Forza Mille V-12: what a blast!



VINTAGE SPIRIT AWARD

 At every rally, we present a Vintage Spirit Award to the couple that best personifies the spirit of vintage rallies. Jon and Mary Shirley brought their 1949 Ferrari 166MM Barchetta all the way from Medina, WA. This is the #10 Ferrari ever built, in concours condition, with the original engine. And not incidentally, worth millions.

Jon and Mary drove it enthusiastically in the rally More importantly, they laughed through the whole week and helped other people have a good time, too. The standing ovation they received at the Victory Banquet was both spontaneous and heartfelt.