This weekend was one of the highlights of my year. The Goodwood Festival of Speed. This is where the worlds best racing drives, car manufactures, classic collectors and supercars join in one huge event. The main event is a timed hillclimb through the grounds of Goodwood House. This year had a few special treats with Nigel Mansell racing his Champcar and the all new Bugatti Veyron!
Richard and I joined a small queue (line for those American readers 😉 )to get into a field for parking. The weather wasn’t what you’d expect from the summer. There was whirling wind and fine rain. (the reports said it would clear up in the afternoon). Having arrived at 9:30 we were parked near the front, so walked into the site.
Programmes for this event were 10GBP! Rather on the expensive side but worth it to get the running order for the hill climb. With the rain pouring down we moved to the cover of the F1 paddock. This is the area is where a lot of the cars are kept, including the F1 cars. You can walk around the cars, peer inside and take photos.
That’s what makes Goodwood different, there cars are not behind cordons, they’re right there in front of you. The drivers even have to get through the crowds to get the cars to the track.
Between wandering around there was some action on the hill climb with the odd F1 car (including a Toyota into the hay-bails) and some nice sports cars. As we wandered back towards the main area past the preparation area I noticed Nigel Mansells car was sat there. Soon enough he turned up with former CART boss Carl Hass.
After watching the supercars race up the hill and the come right past us we had to have a closer look. The highlight was the Bugatti Veyron in it’s first public outing on a track.
This car is surprisingly smaller than you might expect for it’s 860,000GBP price tag.
The festival is spread over a very large area including a nice open area with live music stage and places to eat. As usual Lord March had his main feature in front of the house. This year a sculpture like canopy housing the Renault F1 team. Along with some amazing track performances a computer played the English and French national anthems by revving the cars engine at different rates (most impressive)
As the weather cleared, we walked up the hill to the off road area. There you could take rides in the Bowler Wildcat. Now that thing is fast!
Racing downhill at something like 60 or 70 miles an hour over a jump without any problems. These things are simply indestructible!
The day progressed, with the sun now in full force. Needless to say Richard and I got a ‘little’ sun burnt as we watched an unobstructed view in the middle of the hill climb. From here we were able to see the fastest car was set by Richard Lyons in his Nissan 350Z GT500. It was clearly faster than anything else there, although I suspect that the F1 cars could have done it fast had they been really pushing it.
On entry to the festival Richard had pointed out our long lost school friend, Gareth Macey. He is now in the police force and had been directing traffic. With eagle-eyes we looked for him as we left. Sure enough, there he was waving the traffic down the road. Apart from now being in a police uniform, he looks just the same.
What a brilliant day!