Goodwood Festival of Speed

 

What a truly fabulous day out we had on Sunday!  Goodwood Festival of Speed is arguably the best ‘petrolhead’ event in Great Britain, maybe even in the world.  Where else can you see world champions in Forumla 1, rallying, touring car, motorcycle racing and extreme motorcycling all in one place?

The event takes place in the grounds of Goodwood House, ancestral home to the Earl of March.  He has been organising this fabulous event since 1993, which centres on a hill climb race, the road snaking up the hill to the top of the South Downs with a lovely view towards the sea!

We always start by walking around the paddock.  The paddock is open to the public, enabling you can get close up to the cars and bikes and very often spot the racing drivers there and then!  This year we glimpsed Lewis Hamilton (that’s him in the sitting in the car with the yellow helmet on!)

 

John Surtees on an old Honda racing bike:

and 2 heroes from the recent Isle of Man TT motorcycle races, John McGuinness, and Guy Martin

As I said you can get really close to the cars and bikes, and there are often historic racing cars and bikes which champions have driven

You can watch the cars being prepped for the hill climb:

There is so much more to see though!  In recent years there has been a statue with a motoring theme erected in front of Goodwood House, this year an e-type Jaguar made of steel pipes, to commemorate it’s 50th anniversary.

It is a very popular event, but there is plenty of room for everyone!

We always marvel at the organisation, for example, I only had to queue behind 2 ladies for the toilet, as there are plenty of facilities all around the site.  There are lots of eating places, sadly we didn’t eat or drink at this one!  We took our own picnic, but bought coffee, again very little queueing.

There are plenty of other shows to see too!  Like the Cartier et Luxe show for classic cars, on the lawn by the stables.  There’s usually a jazz band playing there to add to the atmosphere!

On the lawn this year were Chris Evan’s ‘Magnificent 7’.  Chris is a national DJ (currently doing the breakfast show on BBC radio2).  Each year he organises a drive in each of these magnificent Ferraris down to the New Forest, which is auctioned off for charity.  This year the winners had to pay in excess of £60,000 to get to drive these most beautiful of cars!  This black one used to belong to Beatle George Harrison!

 

Two of the best looking super cars are this carbon fibre Buggatti Veyron (Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear’s favourite car and will set you back only a cool £1million!) and this gorgeous red Alfa Romeo Spyder.

We walked right to the top of the hill climb this year, where they hold a rally car competition.  It was a great photo opportunity!  Here’s my best 2 photos!

 

 

This Land Rover experience was quite mind boggling!  The ramp that this car has driven onto is about to lean drastically over the right, and the car is then driven round a champfered bend, then up and over a lorry!  It is quite scary to watch! 

But not quite as scary as the extreme motorcyling!  These guys are crazy!!  They were riding up a ramp, leaping into the air, performing acrobatic tricks, even in some cases letting go completely of the bike, then jumping back on it still in mid air and landing again!

Finally feast your eyes on this gorgeous beauty, a 1935 Mercedes Benz!

We spent about 7 hours wandering around looking at everything and it was the most gorgeous sunny warm summers day!  I can’t think of a better day out – and it is only 30 minutes ride on Maurice’s motorbike to get there!