"MONZA, Italy - Kevin Crowder walked out to the famed race track
in this Italian town, climbed into a Ferrari F2000 racer and circled
the course along with a Grand Prix champion. Mr. Crowder, a Texas businessman
who earned more than $20 million when he sold a software company he
co-founded, isn't himself a professional driver. He is a customer for
one of Ferrari SpA's latest marketing concoctions: the F-1 Clienti program,
under which Ferrari resurrects old race cars that would otherwise be
headed for the scrap heap.
Instead, it sells them for $1 million or more, along with the chance
to drive them with a professional pit crew's help. Mr. Crowder and his
fellow multimillionaires get to appreciate all the thrills of owning
a Ferrari racer, from $100,000 engine changes to sudden course spinouts.
Ferrari has long built its business around exclusivity. It limits production
to around 4,500 to 5,000 cars a year at around $180,000 and up. Some
customers pay further to race these street cars against fellow owners
at company-sponsored "Ferrari Challenge" events. The four-year-old
F-1 Clienti adds a superpremium service by giving people a chance to
drive the same Ferraris used in Formula One, a series of auto races
that is especially popular among Europeans.The program gives customers
"an experience they can't get elsewhere," says Jeffrey Ehoodin,
a Ferrari spokesman.
It is a long way from the days of Enzo Ferrari, who founded the company
in 1940 and produced his first car in 1947. Mr. Ferrari used to destroy
his used race cars to keep their technical secrets from rivals. Several
models of interest to car-history buffs were lost forever, such as the
model 156 "Sharknose" that American Phil Hill drove to the
championship in 1961.
After Mr. Ferrari died in 1988 at age 90, the company began selling
retired race cars to defray the cost of fielding a Formula One team,
which now exceeds $100 million annually. But without the help of expert
mechanics and a place to drive the cars, collectors could only display
them as museum pieces.
Fanatics such as Mr. Crowder wanted more -- which is why he was tooling
around the Autodromo Monza, the home of the Italian Grand Prix, on a
recent Saturday afternoon. As he headed into a sharp left turn, his
rear wheels locked. The car spun out of control and into a gravel trap.The
car wasn't badly damaged, but Mr. Crowder wanted to be ready for the
weekend's highlight the next day: a parade lap with five other Formula
One Ferraris, including one driven by seven-time world champion Michael
Schumacher.
Poring through computer data, Andrea Galletti, a longtime Formula One
mechanic who oversees the F-1 Clienti program, thought Mr. Crowder might
have pressed too hard on the brakes.
Ferrari's success at capturing the leisure dollars of the superwealthy
has been a rare bright spot for Fiat SpA, which owns 56% of Ferrari.
Fiat's own cars for the mass market have been consistently unprofitable.
Ferrari, meanwhile, has expanded its empire by taking control of the
Maserati line of sports cars. Maserati fans now have their own amateur
racing events.
Mr. Crowder, 49 years old, bought his first Ferrari in 1989 and raced
successfully in the Ferrari Challenge series for street cars. In 2000,
Ferrari introduced F-1 Clienti, and last year Mr. Crowder paid slightly
more than $1.5 million for the race car Mr. Schumacher drove during
his championship 2000 season. Together with his earlier Ferrari racing
and maintenance for the new car, Mr. Crowder estimates he has spent
about $5 million on his hobby.
Mr. Ehoodin of Ferrari says the chance to buy an old race car is a reward
for loyal acolytes such as Mr. Crowder, who "worked his way through
the ranks" by owning a string of contemporary and vintage Ferraris
and participating in Ferrari Challenge."I think Ferrari prefers
to do [F-1 Clienti] with its most established customers, and I like
that," says Mr. Crowder. "It's nice to know that you can't
just walk in with a big wad of cash, plunk it down and necessarily get
the car you want. There has to be a real relationship there."
Getting the F2000 ready for Mr. Crowder's spins around the Autodromo
was more than a matter of changing the car's oil and filling her up
with regular. The car can't be driven on a regular street. It requires
a team of technicians to get it ready for the racetrack. On Saturday
morning, they rolled a black cart resembling a dialysis machine beside
the car. It was actually an oil heater. The heater pumped oil out of
the engine, slowly warmed it and pumped it back in. The goal was to
get the car's innards up to about 93 degrees Celsius, since starting
the engine cold could cause cracks and destroy it.
The three-liter 10-cylinder engine in Mr. Schumacher's 540-kilogram
race car puts out at least 900 horsepower -- the exact figure is a company
secret. A typical midsize car puts out less than a quarter of the power
and weighs three times as much. Nitrogen fills the tires of Formula
One cars. The gas is more stable than regular air and helps keep the
tire pressure steady even as the tire temperature rises. Tires are preheated
to 85 degrees Celsius so they will get sticky and grip the track better.
It is a sensitive machine, which is why Mr. Galletti, the mechanic,
at first thought Mr. Crowder's inexperience with the brakes caused his
spinout. Back in the garage, though, the laptop's readout exonerated
Mr. Crowder, showing he hadn't entered the turn too quickly or jammed
on the brakes. In fact, too much brake pressure was going to the rear,
causing the rear wheels to lock prematurely. After long consideration
of the data on the screen, Mr. Galletti stroked his close-cropped sideburns.
"It seems the brakes would be better the other way around,"
he said, ordering the pressure to be redirected to the front wheels.
By Sunday afternoon, the car was adjusted and ready for its parade
laps. The occasion was a victory celebration for Mr. Schumacher and
the Ferrari team, which both won Formula One titles for the year. Thousands
of fans packed the grandstands and others lined the track, held back
by police wearing dress uniforms, high boots and side arms.
Mr. Crowder strode to his car against a background of flashing cameras
and slid into the cockpit. Luca di Montezemolo, who revived the Ferrari
racing team and now is chairman of parent Fiat, walked along the cars
and shook drivers' hands. "He patted the top of my helmet,"
just as in real races, Mr. Crowder noted later.Soon the harsh sound
of 10-cylinder engines drowned out the cheers and the cars sped onto
the track for five laps or so. The quickest drivers clocked laps of
about 1 minute, 35 seconds, about 15 seconds slower than the pros do
it. Mr. Crowder says he hit a top speed of about 270 kilometers per
hour. It was all over in about 10 minutes.
The crowd had come to see Mr. Schumacher, but even being part of a
sideshow was worth the expense, Mr. Crowder says. "How else would
I ever get to be on the track with Schumacher?" he asks."
