Running of the bulls run in the town every 13 November, for ever after. As of 2013 the bull run had been revived as a ceremonial, festival-style community event. A variation is the nightly "fire bull" where balls of flammable material are placed on the horns. Currently the bull is often replaced by a runner carrying a frame on which fireworks are placed and dodgers, usually children, run to avoid the sparks. In 2008, Red Bull Racing driver David Coulthard and Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Sébastien Bourdais performed a version of a 'bull running' event in Pamplona, Spain, with the Formula One cars chasing
San Fermín and a different "encaste" (sub-breed) of bull appears each day. The event begins at 8 a.m. when a first firecracker is lit to announce the release of the bulls from their corral. Before the year 1924 it started at 6 and at 7 between 1924 and 1974. Runners gather earlier at the beginning of the itinerary to ask for the protection of the Saint by singing a chant three times before a small statue of San Fermín which has been placed in a raised niche in a wall: “"To San Fermin we ask to be our patron saint and to