3 July 2010 Goodwood Festival of Speed - day 2

Lyn in the Grandstand watching the events


Bike stunts


The late Peter Brock's VH Commodore. In the background Goodwood House, the home of Lord March who organises all the events at Goodwood.


Perkins/Ingall VR Commodore


Tom Walkinshaw Jaguar XJS


Latest Alfa Spider


New Nissan GTR (Godzilla)


RAF Red Arrows


Motox backwards 360


We left a little later to go to the Goodwood festival of Speed this morning. Big mistake. The traffic was banked up for several kilometres and it was a slow crawl to the event with people pushing into the single lane of traffic exiting the dual carriageway because they were too frustrated to join the queue.

Anyway once we rounded the last bend the parking marshalls quickly got us into our spot and our day was underway. Crowd's were pouring in today I guess because it was not a work day.

Once again we left Lyn's phone in the car (we use it as a GPS) so Mick had to trudge back to the car to retrieve it and Lyn waited at the entrance for Mick to arrive on the tractor, about 15 mins all up.

Today we headed for the parts of Goodwood we didn't do yesterday. Stalls all over the place. Lyn bought Lincoln a little T-shirt with "My Dad is the Stig" on it, so cute, and men's undies made out of micro fibre, they will fit any of the men in Lyn's life. And they are numerous!

We wandered up and down the rows of stalls as Mick wanted to be out in the open for the Red Arrow's air display scheduled for 11.30am.

As was the case yesterday, at exactly 11.30am, they came roaring over and did not disappoint. Fantastic watching the jets maneuvering in the sky emiting trails of red, white and blue smoke. Lyn loves the planes and unlike Australia's Red Arrows, the RAF uses jets.

Then at 1pm it was the turn of the Hawker Hunter jet, doing acrobatics in the sky, awesome. The vertical ascents were particularly spectacular since there was very little cloud, unlike yesterday, when low cloud spoilt the display somewhat.

At 2pm two Royal Navy Black Cat (Helicopters) also performed complex flying manoeuvres as well. Our necks felt a little sore after all that, but well worth it.

Then came the Motor Bikes, 5 SuperX riders doing amazing stunts. It was just great to see what these guys can do over the big jump that had been erected in the spacious grounds. They didn't seem to have any fears and performed several backward 360's. Just loved it, a bit like Crusty Demons I suppose if you are familiar with the series of videos of aerial acrobatics on MotoX bikes.

As it was a very warm day and we have tickets for all the grandstands we decided to have a break from all the walking and go into one of them at the first bend to watch the hillclimb.

They even had an Australian contingent of vehicles there to celebrate 50 years of Bathurst. Peter Brock's (05) 5.0 litre V8 Holden VH Commodore which he drove to victory in 1982 & 1983 at Bathurst was on the track as was Alan Moffatt's Ford Falcon XC GS500 which led a Falcon 1-2 win in the 1977 Bathurst 1000.

Then there was the Tom Walkinshaw Jaguar XJS which eventually won the race in 1985 after a couple of failures and the Ingall/Perkins Holden VR Commodore V8 which won the race in 1995 and lastly there was was a Ford RS500 Sierra Cosworth which came second in 1988 driven by John Bowe.

In between the different classes of events whilst they were preparing the grids, a guy (European motor bike trick champion) performed tricks on a motor bike in front of the grandstand we were in which were amazing.

Mick decided at about 3.45pm we had had enough for the day so we headed back to the dusty car which was further away today due to the volume of people. Watching the people trudging in and out is like seeing cattle stolling into the dairy to be milked. Everyone is heading in the same direction. We managed to have a pretty good trip back to our accommodation unlike yesterday but hey, we aren't in a hurry are we.

All in all a great day and we also met some lovely people.