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Goodwood's Glorious Festival of Speed
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Lotus may have been right up there, replete with the theme sculpture as befitting the featured marque for the 2012 Festival of Speed but Goodwood this year was much more than that - a true celebration of magnificent men and their marvellous machines as Adil Jal Darukhanawala found out
If ever there is a shrine to celebrate speed, or the romance associated with it, then the place to head to is Goodwood in England. Not only is speed celebrated in the right way but more importantly for those dyed-in-the-proverbial-wool types like yours truly it is also the cathedral, where we go to worship. A cathedral where you not just get to meet your gods and check out their chariots but also to see, hear and talk with them! To top it all off you also get to see these very heroes (who have been turned into virtual demigods) go out in the cars and on bikes they drove and rode to ultimate glory. It is like fast forward into the past in the most enjoyable manner possible!
This then is the formula employed by the good Earl of Goodwood, Charles March when he set out to create an event, which brought cars and drivers across many eras together for enthusiasts to see and savour. The 2012 edition of the Festival of Speed was a stunner and having witnessed two previous events at this hallowed venue, I know that I want to keep coming back for more! There is a class within the event which is termed the moving motor show, another innovation that the good Earl has pioneered but then it could also be termed the moving motor museum for where else could you get a 1903 Mercedes 60HP racer dicing with its mighty cousin from 1937, the supercharged W125 Grand Prix car and it's 1952 Le Mans winning 300SL plus the latest Mercedes MGP WO2?
And if you needed variety there was plenty to make grown men go weak at their knees - Ferraris, Maseratis, Alfas, BRMs, ERAs, Bentleys, Lagondas, Sunbeams, McLarens, Eagles, Porsches, Jaguars, Ford GT40s, Lotus, Cooper, Connaught, etc if you were of the four-wheeled bent. The motorcycle brigade was well catered to as well with great names like Norton, Triumph, BMW, Vincent, Moto Guzzi, Vincent, Jawa, DKW, Konig, Harley-Davidson, Yamaha, Suzuki, MV Agusta et al roared away in all their period glory.
And of course the brave and skilled men who piloted these magnificent machines were there to do so once again and show what it meant to race across decades. In so doing they also showed that while technology and techniques may have evolved, the drive and the desire remain the very essence which keeps the competitive fires burning! Goodwood does justice to this ethos unlike no one else and when you have such men like Stirling Moss, John Surtees, Jackie Stewart, Emerson Fittipaldi, Jacky Ickx, Jenson Button, Damon Hill, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Mark Webber, Sebastian Vettel, Klaus Ludwig, Kenny Roberts, Stuart Graham, Wayne Gardner, John McGuinness, Tory Corser, Sammy Miller, Hannu Mikkola, Bjorn Waldegaard, Juha Kankkunen, Rauno Aaltonen and many many others, you know that you are like a kid in a chocolate shop and you just can't get enough of the three days to go out and meet them all! Suffering from riches is a Goodwood tradition and the crowds simply love it.
This year's featured marque was Lotus and there were no less than 40 examples of this fabled brand with cars ranging from the very first spindly sports cars to the earliest examples of the firm's rear-engined Grand Prix cars to a host of world championship winning greats plus also of course their GT machines and breathed-on hot saloons.
To see John Surtees drive the very same Lotus 18 powered by the 2.5-litre four-cylinder Climax engine he put on pole in the 1960 Portuguese F1 GP (just his third ever F1 start!) seemed to role back the years as was seeing Stirling Moss in action with the very same Lotus 18 (sans it's lower bodywork) he drove to beat the all conquering Ferraris in the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix! Both these sprightly gents exuded verve and class as they drove their machines with a silken touch.
SLIDESHOW: 2012 GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED : IN PICTURES!
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