It is easy to be jaded or take the Festival of Speed for granted, its been going for 15 years now and in this time it has become a fixture on the calendar. If you take a step back from this familiarity with the event and take a look at it with fresh eyes it almost seems too good to be true. Racing cars from all over the world, rare and unique ones at that, running up a hill climb, being driven by some of the greatest racing drivers ever, fantastic. I guess it is pretty busy a lot of the time, however you are still able to get much closer to these cars than you can at pretty much any other time and there are only really hay bales between you and the action. The ticket price can be a bit off putting, personally I'd head down for the Friday for a slightly reduced entry and get my fill of the cars on display, that having been said with the cost of other events like Autosport and Race Retro being comparable it offers a whole lot more than both events currently, in my opinion. Or you can make a weekend of it, camping over, which still works out a lot more economical than a long weekend away, plus you get to see a bunch of amazing cars.
The launch event for this years Festival Of Speed happened on the 9th of April and we were lucky enough to be there, being wined and dined* , we'll be bringing you a report of what went down soon. In the mean time check out the details of this event and make sure you fee up some space in your calendar :
The event is on 11th, 12th and 13th July 2008
This years theme is Hawthorn to Hamilton - Britain's Love Affair With The Worlds Motorsport, so expect a wide range of championship winning cars and significant vehicles and drivers to be present. Handily it is also the 50th anniversary for the British Touring Car Championship and a full range of cars from across those 50 years will be present, this is of course right up our street and something we're excited to see, I know that the BTCC has been trawling around to find as many of the older race cars as possible, so hopefully some great stuff will be out.
There is also 50 years of Cosworth to celebrate, I'm guessing we'll see a bunch of DFV powered beauties out and about as well as the obvious, but always entertaining, Sierras. With Andy Rouse on hand they should provide some entertaining runs up the hill.
The Festival of Speed isn't just the track stuff, there is the Cartier ‘Style et Luxe’, a rally stage, a bunch of super cars, things to entertain the kids, music, oooh yes and dragsters too, lovely lovely dragsters.
As I said before it is easy to take this event for granted, but it really is something pretty darn special. Taking another look at it all has given me the push to get back after a five year gap. If you've not been before make sure you do, if only to tick it off a list of 'must do' events. See you there..
Tickets are available on the
Festival Of Speed website :
http://www.goodwood.co.uk/fos/ : ticket link is on the top right of the central panel.
Oh and have a random video of last years event in order to get a flavour of it from a punters perspective, rather than some professional video crew.
* technically I was neither wined nor dined, as I don't drink and left just before lunch to avoid traffic!