EVERY November, The Beaujolais Run attracts an impressive array of teams driving supercars, classic cars, specialist cars, and touring motorcycles to try to be the first to get a bottle of Beaujolais on the desk of the Sunday Times editor.

One team of 10 cars was marshalled by Chepstow man Martin Boddy and left the UK in style: down the same runway the 617 Dambusters squadron used on their historic flight in 1942.

The runway today is used by the Red Arrows team and it was Red10, Squadron Leader Adam Collins, that flagged them off on the run, with the intent of raising money for the RAF’s Benevolent Fund.

Martin, an oesteopath in Chepstow, was asked to marshall the event as he was considered ‘a safe pair of hands’ by the organiser who was a patient of Martin’s at the time.

It’s his 11th year of helping and the task of making sure the cars found their destination was a challenge itself.

“Every year the route changes, although the destination is always the same,” he said. “The cars get there anyway they can, even driving through vineyards to find the most direct route!

“In return for allowing us to start from the famous runway, we laid a wreath at the grave of Wing Commander Guy Gibson who is buried in Steenbergen after his aircraft crashed there late 1944.”

The Beaujolais Run began in 1972 when Allan Hall, a Sunday Times journalist, challenged fellow writers and readers to see who could be the first to bring a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau back to his desk in London.

Originally speed was the objective and the RAF still holds the record time, having flown back in a Harrier Jump Jet in a record time of 32 minutes, waking up the editor asking where he wanted his bottle.

Today, though, the goal is to find the most direct road route to Mâcon, with clues directing drivers to designated stop-offs.