To those of you waiting patiently for my report from the Goodwood Revival, apologies. A comedy of errors (though it wasn't funny at the time) resulted in your reporter missing the first day's racing, failing to acquire his reserved grandstand seat, then wandering around totally confused on Day Two. Consequently I have few photos of value to show you and even less to report. The problems that led to this involved travel misunderstandings between my brother, who flew in from Florida, and myself, but I won't embarrass him nor bore you with the details. Suffice to say that the Goodwood Revival is so huge as to be almost overwhelming and if you've never been there before it is absolutely essential to arrive on Day One, or preferably on practise day, in order to get your bearings.
Though the racing is fabulous (what little I saw of it) Goodwood is a carnival of astonishing historic displays packed into a massive showground that can take hours to negotiate, even if you know where you're going. And yes, many visitors really do dress in costume from the 50's and 60's. So effective is this that when seen with vintage race cars in the background, they can literally take you back in time (often with period music played live). There were moments when I thought I was in my twenties again. No, make that "wished."
Incidentally some 134,000 vintage racing fans attended, including many from the European continent and North America, proof that Goodwood is indeed the greatest vintage racing show on earth. Over the next few days I'll offer further comments on Goodwood, the racing, the wonderful period flying display, and maybe even sneak in a word or photograph from my visit to Britain's National Railway Museum, the world's largest. For now, having no action shots worth viewing, I hope you can appreciate this humble photo of a winning Ferrari as an example of the cars that "raced in anger again" at the 2009 Goodwood Revival.
Did you know the Classic Driver link doesn’t work?
October 2, 2009 @ 2:40 am