Festival of Speed 2007

What can you say about one of, if not the best motorsport festivals in the world? Well, I will try to explain the brilliant event that is the Goodwood festival of speed? Well, there’s the world famous hill climb, the endless tents of hugely expensive cars, some of which dated back to 1902.

The Friday traffic on travelling down to the festival was nothing short of appalling, realising that this could only get worse, I decided to stop off at some relatives of mine, to wait for the traffic to calm down.

As midnight approached, I arrived at the Marriott hotel, which all in all was a good hotel, apart from the £15 a day internet fee. The hotel was good, clean and enjoyable to stay in, however I am not a hotel inspector, so lets get back on track to the thing that really matters… racing.

As I approached Goodwood, from the hotel, the traffic began to build up, with a three mile cue just to get into the festival’s grounds. After an hour of doing the slowest speed recorded by man, I finely arrived at the car park. For me, this festival started now, and I couldn’t wait to see the brilliance that is the festival of speed.

This year, the festival was holding its 15^th annual event, the theme of the event was a spark of genius, breaking records, and pushing boundaries. The theme was carried on through the Bonneville speed records, and the new festival of speed technical section.

Green awareness has spread throughout the world, so the festivals technical section was full with new renewable powered cars, which were spectacular to see, the BMW hydrogen 7 was so good, the organisers of the event used that as one of the hill climbs safety car. Other hydrogen cars were on show, most notably a bizarre looking super car, which used the same technology as the BMW hydrogen 7.

On display at the Bonneville section was world speed record breakers, which ranged from the JCB diesel max, a 1960’s challenger 1 and a bullet shaped blue flame, which achieved a mind boggling speed of 630mph.

The hill event was nothing short of brilliant, with six formula one teams present on both days of the event. The WRC rally cars and a motorbike stunt rider provided great action. The rally cars going sideways around the Molecomb corner, with stunt driver Chris Pfeiffer entertaining the masses all around the circuit.

On Saturday McLaren’s chief test driver Chris Goodwin was in action for the Woking squad, he drove the McLaren MP4-21 in style up the hill. Red Bull’s Michael AmmermullerAmmermuller drove the competitive RB3 up the hill, entertaining the crowd burning his rear tyres in a number of spectacular burnouts.

On Sunday everything changed, the weather conditions deteriorated as the crowd numbers grew to see current championship leader Lewis Hamilton drive last years McLaren Mercedes formula one car up the Goodwood hill.  The crowd went wild, as Lewis waved for the crowd, and was no doubt smiling inside his un-missable yellow helmet.

When Lewis arrived back at the McLaren make-shift tent the British audience went wild, as hundreds of people literally stormed the place in order to get a glimpse of the world famous Hamilton.

Hamilton was scheduled to go up the hill for the second time later in the afternoon, but his second venture up the hill came much sooner than was expected, after something in the McLaren tent seemed wrong.

From the Molecomb grandstand you could see several security guards and police officers there, no less than twelve security guards and eight police officers, something didn’t seem right, and speculation spread among the crowd about what was happening.

As a big surprise to all the fans Lewis went up the hill within a couple of hours of his last venture, he again seemed cool inside the car, thrilling the crowd, as he does so easily in Britain these days.

Lewis came back down the hill in the MP4-21, but then wasn’t seen driving his car back into the formula one paddock. Early rumours speculated that he had gone to have dinner with his family, as father Anthony had indicated at the previous grand prix. A handful of minutes later, it was confirmed by the commentators on the hill climb, that Lewis had indeed left the venue to attend to different events that he had to attend.

I was talking to some fellow racing fans, who I had been discussing the racing, and Lewis’s shock exit, and he and some other spectators had been thinking that he had left from the excessive crowd levels that were outside the Woking teams tent.

We can only speculate that this is indeed where Lewis went too, I personally don’t hold anything against him, or the team for taking this decision, as we want Lewis to become Britain’s next formula one world drivers champion, not another devastating statistic that plagues the United Kingdom.

As the weather worsened at the track, the crowd stayed as buoyant as ever, even the damp and depressing, classic British weather couldn’t stop the loyal motorsport fans from enjoying this event, with the next set of cars being prepared to run up the dreadfully wet track.

One of the expensive endurance racing cars, one that I believe to be a Rondeau-Cosworth M382 lightly crashed out on the hill climb, just in front of where I was sitting, prompting the hill climb officials to abandon any further running, as it was deemed the hill was too wet. With only bails of hay as protection for the crowd, who could blame them?

The Red Arrows were also present at the event, they provided breathtaking action, which included barrel roles, close formation aerobatics, and many more perfectly performed stunts made this years Goodwood festival of speed un missable. With the festival scheduled for next year, I urge you to go to this brilliant motorsport event, which cannot be missed. As it includes entertainment for the whole family, if you love cars, and am a petrol head like myself, this will be heaven on earth for you. I know I’m going next year… are you?

Pictures from the event will be posted in another story later in the week for your enjoyment.

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