Last November I took the final and hardest ASE certification test for advanced engine performance and managed to pass it this time. It was the last requirement i needed to become a Ferrari Master Certified technician and in february i was awarded with exactly that and as of now there are only 28 masters in the US. At that time I was told that the national training manager wanted to take all of the American master techs to the Ferrari Training Center in Maranello, Italy at the factory. and that I'd better get my passport ready. Well in early september i received a letter inviting me to go to the factory and be trained by the actual people that designed and built the cars that i work on every day. I didn't need to be asked twice.
I left on sept 27th and flew through Paris to Bologna Italy. Another tech from Toronto was on the same flight from Paris so we took a taxi from the airport to Maranello together. When we got to our hotel we realized how basic the hotel rooms in italy are. just a place to sleep and shower. so we walked around town together to check it out. Downtown in Maranello there is a movie theatre where they show the F1 races live and anyone can go in for free. It just happened to be a race day with the first ever night race being held on the streets of Singapore. It was great to watch from a place with such a long history of motor racing. A bit like "travelling to Mecca" for me. Unfortunatly the race was a disaster for Ferrari. Oh well.
Class started the next day, we had only 5 techs in the class so we were able to get very deep into some great problems that the instructor had set up for us. Actually the whole class was absolutely first rate and I really learned alot. Wednesday we got a tour of the factory and got to see everything from the foundry where they cast aluminium for the engines, to the final assembly for new cars, to the classic car restoration shop where they keep all the archives for the history of all the racing and road cars going back to the beginning, 1947. Simply Amazing. Unfortunately inside the factory there are no cameras allowed so most of my pics are just from the museum, which wasn't so bad in its own right.
We ate amazing food and everyone had a great time making new friends from all over. Perhaps I'll get to go again in another 7 years.
