Written by Lucy Hill
Every penny from this wonderful day supports our work at Challengers, and we are incredibly happy to announce the event raised an incredible £20,617! This could fund 801 amazing hours of play, fun and laughter at Challengers! This year was a record-breaking year – the number of cars and guests joining us, and the most amount ever raised so we truly cannot thank you all enough.
We started our day at Chicane, where guests participating in the drive had the pleasure of touring the workshop and facilities while the weather decided whether to rain or not!
Chicane is an Aston Martin Specialist based in the Hampshire countryside: they pride themselves on their thorough knowledge of the Aston Martin marque, specialising from the iconic DB2 right through to the modern era. They are award-winning restoration specialists, and their owner has 20 years’ experience in engine building. We are incredibly grateful for Chicane’s support and for partnering with us so we could start our drive at such an amazing venue!
The cars set off on the driving route between 10am and 10:30am. Along the drive we passed by some interesting spots in Hampshire and Surrey! Blackbushe Airport, medieval villages Hartley Wintney and Chobham, the Surrey Hills which are a stunning area of natural beauty, as well as the tranquil villages of Puttenham and Seale.
The next stop was the Lewis’ Museum location in Churt. Robert and Tanya Lewis own a stunning private collection of motor vehicles and motoring memorabilia, including a Lagonda V12 Le Mans (which is one of only two that competed at the 1939 Le Mans 24 Hours), a Mercedes 300 SL (which was featured in Classic Motor & Sports Car magazine), a Koenigsegg Regera, and a Mercedes 300 SL. Many of these cars are still raced at major International Historic races such as Goodwood and Le Mans. The amazing collection hosts over 70 of the world’s most unique and exciting cars, and with new pieces being added each year, the collection only grows!
The doors to the museum opened at 12:00pm allowing our guests to explore the Lewis’ fantastic collection and at approximately 12.30pm the Lewis’ conducted a remarkably interesting Owners’ Tour.
Additionally, a F1 simulator was available for guests to race and record their times, and new for 2023 – the Lewises opened their wonderful Lego collection for us all to view!
We also all had a fantastic time checking out the amazing selection of cars that joined us for the ‘drive’ part of the day in the morning!
Before diving into a live auction of incredible prizes and our raffle draw, we gathered around to hear from the owners of the collection and Challengers too. Thank you to everyone who took part in our auction, you managed to help us raise a whopping £8,500! As always, all the money raised from our Live Auction and Raffle supports our amazing work at Challengers.
Guests were then welcome to continue exploring the wonderful collection and test out the F1 Simulator before the event wrapped up, luckily rain free!
We were delighted that Top Nosh Food Truck joined us for the day serving amazing burgers, chicken burgers, delicious buddha bowls and more – and Top Nosh generously donated 10% of proceeds from the day to Challengers – thank you so much!
As always, we would like to acknowledge the amazing support from everyone that made this day possible.
The Lewises have been amazing supporters of Challengers for many years, and without them this day would not be able to go ahead. We wholeheartedly thank Robert and Tanya for all they have done and continue to do for Challengers, they are beyond brilliant for the way they support their local community.
Thank you to Chicane and all their staff for being an absolutely wonderful venue at the start of the day, providing refreshments, and helping us promote the event far and wide.
Thank you to NFU Mutual Godalming for being our wonderful headline sponsor on the day and donating an auction prize and for your wonderful and ongoing support of our work at Challengers.
And of course, a huge thank you to our dedicated volunteers for dedicating their time keeping the day running, we could not do it without you.
We hope you all had a brilliant day and keep an eye out for our 2024 date coming soon!
Lots of the fantastic photos from the day have just been uploaded to our Facebook album here! If you would like a high-resolution photo of your car, or any of the photos from the day we are incredibly happy to send you a copy – please just ask!
