Goodwood Festival of Speed

mickdw

Im thinking of going to this in June.
Anyone been, any tips?
Seems like an amazing event with lots of access to cars & drivers.

ljy9fn7qwhgasx

Good idea for a thread - this'll be my first time too. Very much looking forward to it.

conzy

I'm looking at something like this too. Monza in 2014 was my last motorsport outing and while it was great I'd love to see more varied machinery and hear some loud brap brap brap

afatbollix

I help run the rally stage at the top of the hill & a member of the GRRC.

You will not experience anything like it in the world.

Fly into Gatwick and hire a car is what I would say. If only coming for one day make sure you get there once the gates open at 07:30 as you wont get everything in unless you spend the whole day at it.


Don't forget the rally stage up the top some great cars seen in anger which is fantastic to see.

mickdw

Thanks.
Yes Gatwick looks handy. Also flights to there from knock which suits me. A friend of mine said he went and got a 10 min helicopter flight morning and evening taking him over the traffic. Said it was small money too. Getting in early though might get around some of the delays possibly.

afatbollix

Its about £200 and they do it just off the A3 if you are arriving late its a good idea but will still need a car tho as its also in the middle of no where.

CianDon

I was ther in 2012 and I literally couldnt even come close to explaining just how amazing an event the FOS is. If your into cars, its amazing but if your big into motorsport it's literally a sensory overload. Any dream car from any sort of motorsport back through generations that you've played on playstation or seen pics of, it probley going to be there. Straight off the bat, the more days you go for the better. To give you an idea we did 2 days and came back shattered but still missed loads. The Thursday is really only invited guests running supercars up the Hill which wasn't really for us so we gave it a skip and did Friday and Saturday. In terms of what to see though, you'd be flat out for the day. Obviously you've got the main hillclimb and theres plenty of spots to watch the action without forking out more for seats in the stands. Getting close to the track by the house is very hard but once you head down towards the left hander theres great viewing there. The on track action is done in groups and they're often repeated through the day so you can come and go all the time. Once you've seen them up the hill, all the cars (and bikes!!) can be seen in their paddocks. The term open pit lanes doesnt come close to the access. Every car is just there for you to walk around without a rope in sight (the only exception our year was the modern F1 teams had GP style set ups but you could look in). Nick Mason's £20 Million Ferrari 250 was just the same as everything else. Theres about 4 or 5 paddocks for the various groupings whick keeps together nicely.

Once you've had a fill of the hillclimb boys, theres free shuttles (trailer on the back of a tractor job) up into the woods for the proper stuff, the rally stage. You can walk but its a killer!! As again with Goodwood, expect every dream car all just sitting around in open paddocks for you to oogle at. The stage doesnt have many vantage points but you can get to a hairpin in the woods that's right near the end of the hillclimb. To hear a Turbo charged 80's F1 car on over run in one ear and a screaming BDA Escort in the other in the middle of a woods is just....stunning!!

Then, on top of all that, they also seem to have the equilivent of a large scale motorshow crammed into the free space. They have a big hall put up displaying all the brand new machinery like at a show and then the manufacturers and other companies have massive set up's then almost like full on dealerships. You'd be almost another day alone cruising about looking at these and some then have expierence bits added on (Porsche had a Cayenne test drive, LandRover had off road passenger spins and Bowler had full tilt off road runs). Whats cool is that these stands have big names appearing all weekend so I know I was able to meet people like Thiery Neuville, Tiff Needell, Murray Walker and more and then you casually bump into stars aswell like Daniel Riccardo and met Andre Lotterer getting a pint :-)

When we went over, we'd a big group and what we ended up doing was flying into London, renting cars and then booked a few appartments in Butlins!! It was a mad one but the rooms were seriously cheap, twas only about 40 mins drive to Goodwood and you'd have a bit of craic in Butlins sher hahaha

ljy9fn7qwhgasx

Did anyone make it over to the Festival of Speed in the end? I can only echo CianDon about what an overwhelming experience it is. Essential for anyone likely to frequent this forum. The Brawn GP 001 was the highlight here.

For the record, we rented a car in Stansted (Gatwick was too expensive by the time we booked) and stayed the night at a cheap-and-cheerful hostel in Brighton, though camping may have also been a cost-effective option.

Here are a few (hundred) photos if anyone's interested: https://www.flickr.com/photos/57673092@N07/sets/72157671686728580

That's the Benetton from Mondello in with all those Bernie Ecclestone collection Brabhams, by the way.
IMG_9711 by Ruraidh, on Flickr

IMG_9730 by Ruraidh, on Flickr

IMG_9760 by Ruraidh, on Flickr

IMG_9877 by Ruraidh, on Flickr

IMG_9931 by Ruraidh, on Flickr

IMG_9924 by Ruraidh, on Flickr

beauf

Great isn't it.

Nice photos.