Well fans,

The first batch of Goodwood Festival of Speed photos are posted. I’ve managed to sort through and upload the first seven classes to the site. More updates will follow tomorrow, but I’m wiped out for now and must get some rest!

Stay tuned - more to follow! In the meantime, ENJOY!

Jeremy

The Goodwood Festival of Speed once again achieved an outstanding crowd attendance, with 150,000 people joining the 14th anniversary celebrations over the weekend.

In spite of the distractions of mixed weather, plus the World Cup and Wimbledon finals, the 50,000 motor sport enthusiasts that arrived at Goodwood House each day of the Festival were treated to some spectacular sights from many of the world’s greatest racing driving and riders.

Festival of Speed first timers Nigel Mansell (plus sons Greg and Leo), Mika Hakkinen, Marcus Gronholm and Richard Petty thrilled the Goodwood spectators, and had a thoroughly good time themselves. Nigel Mansell, for example, said, “It’s great. Lord March has put something special back into motor sport that has been missing for years, I’ve never seen an event like it in the world.” Fellow F1 World Champion Mike Hakkinen summed up the Festival by saying “It’s huge, very impressive, and great fun with so many great drivers and riders.”

Another Festival rookie, DTM Champion Gary Paffett, created the most smoke over the weekend as he spun the rear wheels of his DTM Mercedes-Benz AMG C-Class virtually all the way up the 1.16-mile Goodwood hillclimb course, and went on to be awarded both the dunhill Driver of the Day, and dunhill Future Champion. Fellow Brit Justin Law achieved the most lurid angles on the hill in the Goodwood maintenance van, a standard-looking Ford Transit with an unexpected turn of speed, thanks to its Jaguar XJ220 supercar running gear. Motor cycle legend Randy Mamola also caused much excitement riding the unique two-seater GP Ducati, with his pillion passengers including Lord March, and his daughter Lady Alexandra Gordon Lennox.

Seven contemporary Formula One teams attended the Festival, with the Renault F1 Team creating a memorable aural treat as it ‘played’ ‘God Save the Queen’ and ‘We Are The Champions’ on a current F1 engine, based at the main central display area directly outside Goodwood House. The record number of racing motorcycles and riders tried their very best to create as much noise as the F1 teams, and almost succeeded, although the thunderous F3 Tornado and the Red Arrows air displays, along with the Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet fly past drowned them out.

Away from the hillclimb, the new and improved Goodwood Forest Rally Stage gave the authentic flavour of gravel-spitting motor sport, with plenty of sideways action from rally cars old and new, including five current WRC rally teams, and rallying heroes such as Petter Solberg, Colin McRae and Hannu Mikkola.

This contrasted with the calm and tranquillity of the Cartier ‘Style et Luxe’, a bastion of serenity where some of the world’s most remarkable automobiles and scooters took part in this prestigious automotive design competition. The overall winner was Bill Ainscough with his stunningly beautiful 1937 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Touring.

The Junior Festival of Speed, with its varied displays and entertainment, including ten life-size sand sculptures of significant Grand Prix cars of the last 100 years, plus graffiti artists Rarekind spraying a Ford Transit van with iconic Goodwood images, kept the younger visitors entertained. A series of challenging off-road courses, used for demonstrations by Land Rover, Nissan, Porsche, Toyota and Bowler, also proved popular with the Goodwood crowds, as did the Sunday Times ‘Driving’ Supercar Run.

For a full review of the action over the weekend (The Action section) or to see a list of all the prize winners (Event News page) please refer the website for further information: www.goodwood.co.uk/motorsport/.

Yes, yes - I know. The photos are COMING! I promise! We’re nearly there!

Jeremy

Well, it’s been and gone - aside from feeling like the day after Christmas, Oli and I have been dilligently reviewing over 2,600 photos and three hours of HD footage from FoS 2006. What a fabulous event it was - from the Member’s Summer Ball on Thursday night, right through to the Awards Ceremony on Sunday evening, Oli, TheAwardWinningChrisHughes and I had a FANTASTIC time! (Ok, Chris may have been a little bored at times, but Oli and I had a blast!)

Oli put a few highlights up the other night just to prove that we were indeed working! Make sure you check them out (there’s only 24 or so.) I’ve managed to sort through 750 of the photos so far, and I’m hoping to have more Festival content posted by tomorrow (Sunday) evening.

Many thanks for your patience and kind words. Watch this space - the content is coming.

Jeremy