By Denis Sheehan, Managing Director, Accessible Hospitality Alliance
Ten young people and their families were recently provided with an exhilarating and memorable experience through the ‘Porsche Muscle Dreams Driving Experience Programme’. Delivered by The Muscle Help Foundation, a multi-award winning, family-centred charity that’s changing lives and giving hope to children with muscular dystrophy.
The event was made possible through the support and generosity of the Porsche Experience Centre Silverstone, Whittlebury Park, and many others.
The day starts at Whittlebury Park, where ten young people and their families enjoy an overnight stay before the big day at Silverstone.
Prior to heading off to the Porsche Experience Centre Silverstone comradery and excitement builds by the moment. Just before a delightful lunch where everyone who is part of the experience congregates, the afternoon at Silverstone is outlined by Michael McGrath MBE, CEO, The Muscle Help Foundation.
Michael leads the charity into its twenty second year, on a mission to deliver 657 transformational, highly personalised interventions called Muscle Dreams, for young people with Muscular Dystrophy, and their families, in the UK. That’s one life-changing, cherished moment-in-time for every muscle in the human body.
The purpose of the day and the wider charity was then set out by a previous beneficiary George Shippey, who is now an Ambassador of The Muscle Help Foundation.
George lives with muscular dystrophy and very eloquently explains to the gathered audience what the experience of the ‘Porsche Muscle Dreams Driving Experience Programme’ meant to him, and what to expect unfold in the next few hours. George is seventeen but speaks with an authority way beyond his years. The speech is powerful and communicates far more than words and sounds, it transfers precisely the joy he felt and what his counterparts on the day could expect. The reaction of the audience confirmed receipt and understanding.
George was followed by a further introduction to the experience from someone that needed no introduction, at least not for the petrol heads in the audience, Vicki Butler-Henderson. For any non-petrol heads Vicki Butler-Henderson has been racing cars from the age of 12 starting with karting. She has steered her career through testing cars for BBC Top Gear TV and Fifth Gear TV on the Discovery channel, as well as for countless car magazines.
Vicki described the magic of cars and pushing them and ourselves to the limit, achieving as much as is humanly possible, an example she has lived by. Perhaps most notably in 2004 when as part of the support races for the British Formula One Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone, Vicki became the first woman to win a Maserati race in the history of the marque. Warming the podium up for Michael Schumacher, who later that afternoon won The British Formula 1 Grand Prix.
After lunch the Porsche Experience Centre Silverstone brought a sample of what to expect to the hotel courtyard, three gleaming Porsche supercars all ready and waiting for their guests to savour. When the engines fired up the enticing growl of supercar enveloped the courtyard, whetting the appetite of the beneficiaries and members of their families to jump in and get a feel for what would follow on the race track later.
When we arrived at Silverstone the true magnitude of the home of the Formula 1 British Grand Prix was unveiled. It is a village of world class engineering which since the 1950s has welcomed the greatest racing car drivers of all time including… Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, Lewis Hamilton, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Niki Lauda, Stirling Moss, Jackie Stewart, David Coulthard, and many more. Today it welcomed ten Muscle warriors.
The Porsche Experience Centre Silverstone is located just over two miles from the Silverstone entrance, all the while you are travelling there you are within the race course. On arrival you are greeted with an array of cars that each deserve careful inspection if time allowed, it didn’t.
The team at Porsche Experience Centre Silverstone led by Centre Manager Gill Kerr greeted their muscle warrior guests with a welcome as warm as their car exhausts would become later. It was the fourteenth such welcome, as the team at Porshe have become attached over the years to what they see as a special day for them too. In fact, Gill shared with me that the drivers compete for a seat behind a wheel on the day, such is their enthusiasm to be part of the experience. The relationship grew and flourished under leadership from a member of the Porsche Experience Centre Silverstone that sadly is no longer with us, Gordon ‘Gordy’ Robinson.
The cars, ten of them, each a majestic exemplar of Porsche engineering rolled around to the back of the centre where the track awaited. One by one the beneficiaries entered the cars, some with the help of a hoist. It was obvious some were experiencing nervous anticipation, which I must confess I was also, such was the raw power on display about to be unleashed.
As the cars circled the track the laps became faster, and faster, and faster, the guest passengers must have been giving the drivers the instruction “light it up”. A phrase that tells the drivers to put their pedal to the metal, they obviously did.
The speeds being reached challenged my ability to capture the moments, and as I attempted to do so the way the cars stuck to the road seemed to defy physics. And I must mention the sound, the incredible tone of the engines as they careered around the track added authenticity to the mastery of how they were being driven.
As the cars returned it was hard to discern who had enjoyed the experience more, the passengers and the drivers equally exhilarated. Parents and siblings raced to greet the passengers to have the exuberance on their faces translated into words.
I am not sure if the joy of the experience could be vocalised by the passengers and their families, I know I can’t translate it into writing, to witness it was priceless, a moment in time that makes a difference and will stay with a great many people for a very long time, including me.
The work done by The Muscle Help Foundation, the Porsche Experience Centre Silverstone, Whittlebury Park, as well as the organising and management of the whole day by BCD Meetings & Events alongside KGK Genix really does make a difference, I’ve seen it and felt it firsthand.
Thank you Michael, Sue, Gill, Vicki, George, Tracey, Colette, Lisa, the beneficiaries and their families and everyone else (apologies if you are not named) for one very, very special day.
Denis Sheehan
For any readers that have not seen enough Porsche yet, more below.
