My good fortune in having tickets supplied for various events continued last weekend, as I was lucky enough to have a ticket for the Goodwood Revival for the Saturday. The Revival has grown immeasurably over recent years, with as much (if not more) to do away from actually watching the excellent racing.
As is mainly the case now with the Revival, a very large percentage of those attending were in the appropriate period clothes - though I chose to go in comfortable and practical up to date clothing.
I started my time there by having a relatively short Paddock wander, relatively short because I wanted to get out trackside to catch the action plus the Paddock was so crowded that it wasn't the easiest place to move around anyway.
As usual at Goodwood, the racing was absolutely brilliant and there were so many highlights.
The photo above shows Rob Hall driving the reincarnation of the BRM Type 15 V16, which was definitely one of the highlights. Glorious looking car and when he was on the throttle the engine noise was incredible. That raced in the Goodwood Trophy for Grand Prix cars of the type that raced between 1930 & 1951, with the dice for the victory being a thoroughly entertaining battle involving polesitter David Morris in a type B ERA, Ian Baxter in an Alta 61 and eventual winner Mark Gillies who came through from the 3rd row of the grid in an ERA type A.
The St Mary's Trophy for historic saloon cars is run as two races, one on Saturday for the 'star' drivers and one on Sunday for the owners/entrants. The race on Saturday was absolutely amazing. Romain Dumas qualified Bill Shepherd's Ford Galaxie 500 on pole and duly led from flag to flag, though he was chased hard and very spiritedly by Frank Stippler driving an Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA with Andrew Jordan piloting a Ford-Lotus Cortina Mk1 in to a fine 3rd place. The most thrilling entertainment in this race though was the battle for 13th overall, as Andre Lotterer and Alex Brundle (leading in pic below) traded places around the lap throughout the race as they duelled for Mini supremacy. Their dice just overshadowed the 3 way Mini squabble a little further back that included Karun Chandhok. This was definitely a race that was better being there than watching on tv.
The Whitsun Trophy race for the brutish big sports cars has long been one of my favourites at this event, as I saw many of this type of race when they were in their prime. Oliver Bryant took a flag to flag victory from pole in a Lola-Chevrolet T70 Spyder, just clear of a race long dice between two (unrelated) Halls - Rob in a McLaren-Chevrolet M1A and Stuart in GPX's McLaren-Chevrolet M1B (photo below). Their hard driven dice was resolved on the last lap when Rob had fuel feed problems exiting Lavant and Stuart surged past to claim 2nd.
Andy Middlehurst was a very successful race in FF1600 and Production Saloons back in the 80's & 90's and continues his winning nowadays in a Lotus-Climax 25 that is an ex Jim Clark car. He had won the Glover Trophy seven times ahead of this weekend and duly converted pole into a dominant victory to make it eight wins, while a myriad of lovely 1.5 litre Grand Prix cars of the type that raced between 1961 & 1965 gave vain chase.
Goodwood also put on a fabulous tribute to Graham Hill, as they commemorated the 60th anniversary of Hill's first World Championship title victory. The parade featured a good number of widely differing cars that Hill had driven throughout his long and illustrious career, as he remains the only driver to have ever won the Triple Crown of victories at the Monaco GP (which he won 5 times), the Indy 500 and the Le Mans 24hrs. It was a really fitting celebration, enjoyed in no small part by his son Damon (himself a World Champion, in 1996) as they remain the only father and son to have won the World Championship.
Here Damon is driving the 'Old Faithful' BRM P578 from the 1962 Championship win, while below is an Alan Mann Racing Ford Escort that Hill raced at the Oulton Park Gold Cup in 1968.
There was also a track parade featuring a wide variety of Ferrari cars as part of the 75th Anniversary Celebrations of that great marque. I also got to watch the final qualifying for the 'main race' of the weekend - the RAC TT Celebration race held on Sunday - with many a Cobra and E-Type doing battle.
The last race on the Saturday was the 1hr, two driver, Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy race for closed cockpit GT cars of the type that raced before 1963. Mike Whitaker shared his AC Cobra Dragonsnake with ex BTCC Champion Andrew Jordan and they emerged victorious aided by a little good fortune with the timing of a safety car and with when they had taken their mandatory pitstop. Nicky Pastorelli had charged from 3rd on the grid to lead the first part of the race in a glorious Ferrai 250 GT SWB.
Then it was time to head to the paddock to say thanks to my great friend for my ticket and to start the long hike to the car park. On the way to the car park, I was treated to a display by three Spitfires which concluded against a glowing sunset - what a way to finish a truly outstanding day !
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