Goleta resident Eric Marston remembers wanting a Ferrari when he was as young as 7 or 8.
“I watched a lot of ‘Magnum, P.I.,’” he said, referencing the 1980s TV series starring Tom Selleck, whose character drove a red Ferrari 308 GTS. “From childhood, I told people, ‘I will own a Ferrari.’
“I’ve always loved cars, and a Ferrari is the ultimate car — a symbol of art and performance.”
Since the father of four started collecting the Italian cars in 2012, he has bought and sold 15. Comparatively, Marston’s is a small collection: “Some people might own 75 to 100 cars,” he said.
True collectors make a practice of buying and then selling, always looking to upgrade.
Marston, 46, owns seven Ferraris, one each of the line’s models, less the convertible, he said; their prices have ranged from about $300,000 to $1.2 million.
Three in his collection fill his Goleta home’s garage. One is a canary yellow, another dark blue and the third a deep red, and they will accompany Marston to the Montecito Motor Classic on Sunday at the Santa Barbara Polo and Racquet Club. The event benefits the Santa Barbara Police Activities League and the Santa Barbara Police Foundation.
Two of Marston’s Ferraris are racing models, meaning they are not street legal. They’re stored at a race shop in Las Vegas.
“One typically races with a race shop that is linked to a Ferrari dealership,” he said.
Marston said he evolved from the Ferrari-crazy boy to the amateur racer he is today by “working hard and doing well in my businesses,” which gave him an advantage when it came to buying the luxury cars.
In college at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, the town in which he was raised, Marston turned his Ferrari dreams into reality by joining the Ferrari Challenge, a single-make championship that unites dream cars and clients on the world’s most picturesque tracks, according to the website. The challenge beckons those who relish top-level sprint races.
“The Challenge is how an average guy could both have a Ferrari and race,” Marston said.
He joined the Sports Car Club of America, a nonprofit club founded in 1944 that sanctions and supports road racing, rallying and autocross in the United States. The SCCA provides novice competition licenses, gives one access and “is good for newbies,” Marston said.
He also trained with instructors, both in person and online. One of the schools was the Porsche Track Experience in Birmingham, Ala., and another the Ferrari Driving School in Maranello, Italy.
One more thing: Racers need to own the vehicle in question because that’s the order of things.
“You have to own a Ferrari before you can enter a race,” Marston said.
Before he bought his first Ferrari in 2012, Marston and his wife, Amy, a graduate of UCSB, started their family. Their children are Madeline, 17; Gwendolyn, 15; Tristan, 13; and Declan, 11.
Marston’s first competition was in 2017, at a “track day” at Willow Springs International Raceway in Rosamond, in Kern County. The event, sponsored by the Ferrari Club of America, “translated to his instant addiction” with the sport of racing, Marston said with a grin.
Racing categories are based on the make of a car; in the case of Ferrari, it might be a 488 Challenge competition. With every competitor in a similar car, judges hone in on the skill of individual drivers, he said.
Marston’s newest Ferrari is a 488 GT Modificata. The new model was flown to him from Italy in May, when Marston resumed racing after the COVID-19 pandemic “turned the 2020 racing schedule upside down.”
In fact, Marston’s sole 2020 competition was at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey County because it’s within driving distance.
“I was not willing to fly last year,” he said.
The May competition took place at Watkins Glen International in Dix, N.Y., near the southern edge of Seneca Lake. Marston appears in a 2017 YouTube video from “Inside the Monaco FIA Driver Briefing.”
At the time of May’s event, Marston was the first American to have the 488 GT Modificata in his possession. Only 30 of the cars were assembled, he said, and it is Ferrari’s “ultimate GT car and is based on the same car that traditionally runs at Le Mans,” he noted.
“GT” technically stands for “Grand Touring,” or “Gran Turismo” in Italian. In racing, “GT” is a blanket term for all cars with fenders (as opposed to open wheel), and are typically (but not always) based on a production street car, Marston said.
With street cars, a “GT” is more luxurious but still a performance-oriented car, nearly always with the engine in the front. The current Ferrari GT cars are the 812 Superfast and the Roma, he said.
Marston’s 488 GT Modificata model is “fast” around any track, where cornering speed is key and the straight stretches are less important in the long run.
Later in the summer, he flew to Road America, a race track in Sheboygan County, Wis. At that track, he again raced his GT Modificata. Road America is a big, fast track, he said, and the difference in the Modificata was “even more astounding with the car’s incredible power.”
Pre-pandemic, Marston raced around the world, as Ferrari Challenge events are divided among North America, Europe and Asia. Some events are “support races” for other, larger races, such as the Formula One.
He joined a 2019 race in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, one that supports the Canadian Grand Prix, he said. The crowd that day numbered 150,000 people, and Marston won the event.
He flew to France and raced at the famed Le Mans, and in a finale of three Ferrari Challenges that took place outside Florence, Italy. Some are track races, and others cover public roads converted to temporary tracks.
Marston trains with and is mentored by a professional driver, Italian Alessandro Balzan, a winner of multiple racing championships.
“He gets paid to race, and I pay to race,” Marston said, adding that he pays for entry fees, the mechanics who maintain and repair his cars, to transport his race team and cars to events, and for insurance.
While Marston’s street-legal Ferraris are covered by his regular auto insurance, the racing vehicles have special coverage. He gets low-mileage discounts, since in reality, the cars don’t rack up many miles unless they are being driven.
The insurance is divided into “pit and paddock” coverage — property insurance for when the car is stored, idle at an event or under transport — and “on track” coverage for race days, which Marston purchases “by the event.”
Any actual “wheel-to-wheel” racing insurance is difficult to procure and “very expensive” because it covers crash damage.
One might assume that racing would be a perilous sport, but Marston said otherwise. In fact, cheerleading ranks as the most dangerous, followed closely by horseback riding; both involve falls, he said.
“Race car driving is way down the list. It used to be risky, but the safety innovations put in place, such as steel roll cages and fire suppression systems, make it quite safe. People usually just walk away from crashes,” he said.
In March, Marston will have a car trucked to Austin, Texas, to race in the Circuit of the Americas event, he said.
What advice would Marston, who works as an “Internet entrepreneur” during the day, share with another child itching to race Ferraris? “Work hard, start your own business, and keep believing!”
— Laurie Jervis tweets at @lauriejervis and can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are her own. She would happily take the wheel of a Ferrari if given the chance.