4. MIAMI FORMULA E RACE & CITROEN SHOW

A surprise invitation from Citroen headquarters in Paris, France, arrived in December, 2025, courtesy of George Dyke, President of "Citroenvie!", the big Canadian Citroen enthusiast club (https://citroenvie.com/). Citroen is now sponsoring a 2-car Formula E race team, and hoped for some local Citroen enthusiasts to display their cars at the race in Miami, January 31, 2026. Philippe Laine, the former owner of our 2CV (Charlotte) and a Citroen devotee, took the lead in arranging participation for several of us. He negotiated some nice benefits: Motel room, grandstand seating tickets, payment toward our trailer for transporting Charlotte to the Miami venue, etc. Heck yeah, we were IN for participating in this unexpected adventure.

Why trailer the 2CV to Miami? Well, South Florida superhighway traffic is fast, frantic, dangerous and no fun...exactly the opposite of the attitude needed to safely travel in Charlotte. Finding quiet back roads to use for the 75+mile journey would've been almost impossible, and would have taken many hours to complete. Better to tow down, then drive the car around at the venue, and make it safely home to Jupiter the following day. So we did. 

I broke my wrist a week before the event, so enlisted my steadfast friend Paul Buxe to come along on the 2-day adventure, and do all the heavy lifting required, since I was now partially disabled. Because of the difficulty involved in loading and off-loading the 2CV from the rented trailer, we opted NOT to participate in a night-time professional photo shoot at the famous South Beach the night before the race. I'll include photos of some of the other cars that appeared, they are beautiful! 

We DID meet up with the others at the race course later that night, and dropped our cars off at the display site. Confusion, frustration, and dis-organization ran rampant, but we finally found our way inside the race course visitors' area, unloaded the cars, and met the Citroen ladies from Paris who would shepherd us through rest of the event. Then, off to our sumptuous room for a good night's rest (and free breakfast!) before the race tomorrow.

Race day dawned gray, cold and threatening rain... but these folks race no matter what. We made it to the track without further confusion, parked and crossed the tall pedestrian bridge leading to the grandstand. As we walked down the stairs, there spread out before the eyes of every race attendee was our Citroen Classics display! We took off the car covers, polished the cars, and started answering questions from onlookers non-stop. Most folks had never seen Citroens before, so lots to talk about. 

Practice and qualifying for the race took place all morning, and was interesting to watch from the stands. Unique, in that there was speed, squealing tires, and hurtling race cars...but NO engine noise! Formula E is its own thing. Before the race our Citroen hosts from Paris escorted some of us to the actual racing pit of the Citroen Team, where we could see the Formula cars up close and ask about the technology. Then, they interviewed us on camera and took us back to the "civilian" spectator area.

The race was wet, and a disappointment for Citroen, as their drivers finished well down in the pack, earning no driver or manufacturer points toward the 2026 Formula E championship. Next race is in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, so maybe better results in that DRY climate. Here's a short video of the start, showing the lack of familiar racing noise!  https://youtube.com/shorts/VE2hr__37wk?si=VkbzrUBFc-GFwMYW

Not much to tell after the race. Once the crowd dispersed we loaded up the trailers with our cars and headed home. 

This was definitely an event that I would never have thought  to attend, had it not been for the car show invitation from Citroen Corporation. A month or so later, the corporation posted this video of our participation in the event, which you can see here: 

https://youtu.be/WRCzbto7e30?si=g3-hh4GIBtdQ2VyY