Putting Your Petrolheads Welcome Prize to Good Use
OK, maybe dreaming about winning our monthly prize draw isn’t as high up your agenda as dreaming of a lottery win. However, thanks to one enterprising winner, both draws contribute to good causes.
Paul Bonsall tells us his story…
I was lucky enough to win the Prize Draw from Petrolheads Welcome a couple of months ago – and received a £25.00 voucher from Pit-Lane Racing as my prize.
Running a Classic Car-focused country inn which has been described as “part pub, part motor museum” this seemed a great opportunity to enhance our automobilia collection.
However, once I saw the Pit-Lane Racing website, a better idea came to me.
I organise a classic car charity fund-raising weekend each year for the Sporting Bears Motor Club – ‘The Gambol’ – raising money for local children’s charities. A quick call to Rick Cullen, who runs Pit-Lane Racing, and he agreed to match our winning voucher and supply us with an item of our choice to enter into the charity auction on the Saturday night.
We chose an Aston Martin Le Mans Team Polo Shirt in the traditional Gulf colours as I knew we had a couple of Aston Martin owners in attendance that weekend. However, I also knew we had some Aston owners here a couple of weekends afterwards, so I invited sealed bids from them also.
As auctioneer on the evening I took great delight in playing off bidders present against the mysterious bidders outside the room and in the end achieved significantly more for the shirt than its face value.
The final result was about £1,000 from the auction and £3,500 in total raised for our chosen Charity – Zoe’s Place, a baby hospice and respite centre based in Middlesborough.
Here are few pictures from the event (the whole weekend was sixties themed, hence the colourful hippy outfits!):
My thanks to Petrolheads Welcome and Rick Cullen at Pit-Lane Racing for their support.
Paul Bonsall – The Fat Lamb Hotel, Ravenstonedale, Cumbria
(Ed: And our thanks to Paul for a great initiative that we’re delighted to publicise.)
N.B – The Fat Lamb is a small Country Inn located on the Cumbria/Yorkshire border that specialises in arranging Classic Car tours for clubs of all marques – further information at www.fatlamb.co.uk

Paul Bonsall (kneeling) with guests at the Fat Lamb