So over the weekend I had been looking at various posts on social media about the Goodwood Festival of Speed with much envy as I was not attending. I sat there and asked myself: "Why have I never been?" Well in all honesty that is a question I cannot answer, I've got no excuse. However, due to a very kind gesture I actually managed to attend this weekend.
Out of the blue
Picture the scene, it's Sunday morning and I wake up about 8:30am or so. I check my phone and see that I have a missed call from Alex, my landlord. Hmm, that's odd, I hope it's nothing urgent. I ring him back straight away to find out what he wanted. He mentioned something about a ticket but I was too groggy to understand what he's saying so I ask him to repeat himself.
He then says he has a spare ticket to Goodwood, OMG. Shut. The. Front. Door. I say "No Way" and he asks if I can be ready to be picked up in 15 minutes time. You bet you ass I can! So he picks me up in his wonderful Mk1 3.2 litre Audi TT Quattro as we head down into the country to meet up with his friend Julian. Now as you probably know, the space in the back of a TT is non-existent so we switched cars and complete the rest of the journey in Julian's rather rapid Audi S3.
We've arrived!
When we arrived I was amazed by the sheer amount of cars in the car park and there were lots of lovely cars to spot. The car park carspotting felt like a good warm up to the main event - it was an added bonus. I would have liked to get more photos but I would have been there all day!
At the event there is lots to see and even if you spent the whole weekend there you might not see it all - it really is that big. There are lots of stands and exhibitors plus plenty to do no matter what age you. We went to the track periodically throughout the day where there was a plethora of cars with racing pedigree. There was so much to see so it's very difficult to write about it all in I'm honest!
My personal highlights of the day included seeing the menacing Mercedes-Benz AMG GT R in the flesh - or should I say metal, seeing the thunderous Aston Martin Vulcan drive by on the hill climb and seeing some wonderful drifting over at the Jaguar Experience stand - video for that is on my instagram. I also spotted a very interesting VW Golf GTE Sport concept which had a lovely glistening paintjob and an interior that looked like it was designed for Batman.
The Final Shootout
We hit the track for the last time as the day moved towards its conclusion. We watched the final shootout where the drivers compete against the clock to get the fastest time up the hill climb. It began with some golden oldies which were never likely to get a good time, in fact I thought one or two of them wouldn't even make it up the hill!
We then moved on to the BTCC cars and Matt Neal put in a good benchmark of 56.30 seconds. Hunter Abbott followed soon after but hit trouble - and hay bales - after he misjudged Molecomb corner which caused him to very of the track and in to the hay. Thankfully he sustained no injuries apart from a bruised ego - and a crumpled Chevrolet Cruze.
Liam Doran also hit problems after his blistering start with what appeared to be a gearbox issue in his World RX Citroen DS3 causing him to finish prematurely but his father, Pat Doran, had no such issues in his Ford RS200. Mike Skinner put in a heroic run in his Nascar engineered Toyota Tundra and got very close to Flint Wall as he made his way up the hill. He posted a time of 50.44 seconds which put him first but his time as soon smashed by Kenny Brack and his McLaren P1 LM.
He posted the first time under 50 seconds with a time of 47.07 seconds, a time which looked to be hard to beat. The best was saved until last however as Olly Clark drove an absolute stormer in his Subura Impreza Gobstopper II to get the overall win with a blazing time of 46.29, hitting 140mph as he went over the finish line. This is Clark's second win in as many years and his time yesterday was the 9th fastest in the history of the hill climb - amazing stuff!