Goodwood's Glorious Festival of Speed

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.

2012 GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED : IN PICTURES!

Much the same was also in evidence when double world F1 champion Emerson Fittipaldi drove not just his championship winning Lotus 72 but also the classic Lotus 49 which the late Jim Clark and Graham Hill had decimated rivals with in 1967 and 1968. Speaking to his many fans at Goodwood, Emerson said, "The 72 was the best car I drove in my whole career. Colin Chapman was a genius and I am proud to have contributed to a small part of a great story."

Many more Lotus F1 greats were in action including the 77, the 78 and the 79 with which the great American drive Mario Andretti won the last world championship title for Lotus in 1979. That Colin Chapman of Lotus was among the very first to exploit ground effects in F1 cars, the 78 and 79 are very significant examples by virtue of being the first exponents of this aero-tech in the sport. A host of other Honda and Renault-engined Lotus F1 cars were also in attendance but then when you had Moss, Surtees, Fittipaldi, Ickx and Oliver piloting some of the greatest Lotus Grand Prix cars of all time, the old timers outshone the newer more modern machines.

And among the many gems from this marque was the Lotus 56B Grand Prix car from 1971. This car was powered by a Pratt & Whitney gas turbine motor and featured four-wheel drive. It was developed from the STP Lotus gas turbine car which almost won the Indy 500 in 1970 and even though it started a couple of F1 GPs, it suffered from severe throttle lag and was also overweight, proving it to be a handful. Nonetheless the 56B did show off it's wedge-shaped stance which was further exploited by designer Maurice Philippe to churn up the superb Lotus 72 which went on to win in the hands of Jochen Rindt, Emerson Fittipaldi and Ronnie Petersen in an operating period which started form mid-1970 and extended till the end of 1973!

One of the great things about Charles March and his team is the manner in which they research the cars and drivers they bring to the Festival every year. This year apart from the 1971 Le Mans 24 Hours winning Porsche 917K, there was also the classic Porsche 962C, in the Rothmans colours no less from the Porsche museum. While there were other Porsche 956s from 1982 and 1983, the 962C was the very machine that triumphed at Le Mans in 1987! And speaking of great sports cars, there also was a Matra-Simca 670B long tail racer of the type that won Le Mans in 1972, driven by one Graham Hill and Henri Pescarolo.

With this victory Graham remains the only man to have ever bagged motor sport's triple crown - the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indy 500 rounding off the triple strike. What was amazing was that this was the 1973 Le Mans winning machine and at Goodwood 2012 Graham's son Damon and his grandson Josh both took turns to give the Matra a blast down the main straight. That French beauty was awesome in its turnout and the music from its wailing V12 was something to die for.

2012 GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED : IN PICTURES!

Talk about variety and there was the glorious Eagle-Weslake V12 Grand Prix car built, developed and driven by American Dan Gurney. I reckon this car to be one of the best looking Grand Prix cars of all time and it was also very fast and superb to hear when on full chat. Gurney won the 1967 Belgian GP at Spa in the car which appeared at Goodwood and I wonder if it could have gone on to even more glory had it received the same support as Ford gave Keith Duckworth and Mike Costin for the Cosworth DFV V8, the winningest engine in Grand Prix history.

Mercedes-Benz had a strong presence at Goodwood this year like always and the obvious star of the show for me was the W125 Silver Arrow GP car from 1937. From the Age of Titans as that period in Grand Prix history is acknowledged, the straight-eight, 5.6-litre, supercharged machine with 600bhp on tap went on to win 5 of the 8 GPs in 1937 in the hands of such great drivers as Rudi Caracciola, Hermann Lang and Manfred von Brauchitsch.

The British driver picked by Alfred Neubauer to join the Nazi-backed Mercedes-Benz racing outfit, Dick Seaman cut his teeth driving the W125. Keeping very much in period was the W125’s great rival, the rear-engined V16 Auto Union Grand Prix car made famous by the exploits of Bernd Rosemeyer. Brought to Goodwood by Audi Tradition, it was in hill climb trim with twin tyres at both rear corners and was handled with verve by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason.

And then there were the present day Grand Prix stars led by world champions Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel who turned out to enthral show goers with their McLarens and Red Bulls. I particularly liked the sight of Vettel walking over to pay his respects to John Surtees who had stepped out of his Lotus 18 and walked briskly to the paddock to get aboard his 1955 Norton F-Type Manx.

Vettel was immediately offered the saddle of the prized Norton (just one of two built and the only one in existence today) but Vettel said that he wouldn't want to scare himself! Jenson Button and Damon Hill caught up with TT legend John McGuinness and I heard Button say to John "You guys must be stupid to race on the Island at such fearsome speeds!" John's succinct reply was what every motorcyclist would have relished: "Looks stupid but there is a lot of skill and bravery in it as well!"

2012 GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED : IN PICTURES!

King Kenny Roberts, triple world 500cc champion was out there but he had his fearsome 750cc OW31 Yamaha with which he went on to score so many race wins including victory in the Daytona 200. "It scared me just as bad today as it did then," remarked Kenny who was otherwise not averse to popping umpteen wheelies on this monstruous two-stroke. Kenny is the elder statesman of modern day motorcycle road racing but at Goodwood he was happy to talk with fans and fellow racers but whenever he had the time he was fixated on the magnificent 1972 Harley-Davidson XR750TT road racer of the type used to stunning effect by the likes of the late great Cal Rayborn. Maybe he was just wondering what these large bent iron Yankee bikes had in them that they posed such a strong challenge to him in his early racing days in the US!

Sammy Miller wheeled out his 1955 Moto Guzzi 500cc machine, probably the most outrageous Grand Prix bike of all time with a tiny V8 engine fed by eight individual carburettors and too complex for it to have met with success on the classic circuits in its time. Only three were built and Sammy has one, which he has been trying to perfect all these years. It ran without its dolphin fairing but it looked great and played a marvellous note from its exhaust. If that wasn't all, the actual 1952 Daytona 200 winning Norton Manx was there in its absolute original guise, preserved intact all these years and never restored. It had great company in the form of the two original Tritons (Triumph engines in Norton Manx frames), which appeared at the TT in 1953. Both these bikes are the very original machines made to spawn this line of hybrid bitsas and in absolute original trim, having been in storage since the late 1950s!

The loudest motorcycle in the Goodwood paddock was but a 250cc but when it is the Honda RC162 built for Mike Hailwood, it had to be special. This four-cylinder bike with 40bhp on tap had a rev ceiling of 14,000rpm (pretty heady for its time) but with it Mike ‘The Bike’ went on to score the second of his 14 TT victories and also his first 250cc world title. Riding it at Goodwood was Mike's compatriot Stuart Graham, who was later to go and win the 50cc TT for Suzuki!

Mike's rival from the late 1960s, Phil Read was to have been on hand to ride his 1974 world championship winning MV Agusta 500-4 but while the bike was there, Phil didn't turn up. WSB world champion Troy Corser was aboard one of the glorious BMW R90/S Daytona super bikes from 1976 but the ones that had many drooling were the made in Australia Irving Vincents, there being two solos (in 1300cc and 1600cc displacements) and one sidecar combo.

Goodwood doesn't discriminate with the rally brigade there being a special section known as the Goodwood Rally Stage but I just couldn't tear myself away from the race cars and bikes and I am kicking myself for that even till today! My childhood rally heroes and evergreen greats like Rauno Aaltonen, Bjorn Waldegaard and Hannu Mikkola dazzled with their car control and mastery on the loose surfaces as did the likes of Juha Kankkunen, Jimmy McRae and many others. Maybe the next time it will be the Rally Stage first as there is unfinished business for me to wrap up there!

2012 GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED : IN PICTURES!