After a yearlong wait Ben and I finally get to set off today to spend the next 5 and a small bit of days at Goodwood the home of the “Festival of Speed”. Cancelled last year as a result of Covid and looking likely to be cancelled again it is finally taking place. We are staying on site of the event, or at least close too, with a courtesy bus to take us to the main entrance, staying in the caravan. To say that we are both looking forward to the event would be somewhat of an understatement. Our trip down was thankfully uneventful and we drove straight to our allotted field, which already had a number of folks already set up but with room for many hundreds more, that will be expected. The facilities provided are excellent – individual electric hook ups – toilets – showers – waste facilities and the main tracks for movement covered by metal sheeting. Night-time security also seems to be covered by numerous floodlights and generators to provide the power. Just a list of the reasons why it is a wee bit expensive. However, we are virtually on top of the event and hotels in the area would I’m sure cost a lot more and then you have the trouble of negotiating endless queues of traffic both to get in and out each day. All we have to do is walk 50feet and flag down the bus. Having set up I set too and made us our evening meal courtesy of the “Cadac BBQ”. It worked well and the food unburnt and enjoyable. Food consumed and equipment cleaned and cleared away we sat and started to work out our plans for the next few days. After some time reviewing the map of the event and trying to work out some plan, we both agreed not to plan rigidly and to play initially the first couple of days as exploratory, especially as we had no real idea of the vastness of the site and therefor the distances involved. I have to say that this was indeed the best method which meant that by the last day we had indeed comfortably, with ease no rush, covered every square inch of the site. The next day, we up bright and early, still people beat us to the off, washed, dressed, and breakfasted and ready for the adventure. As we thought, we had a short stroll to catch our double decker courtesy bus, which negotiated its way through the country lanes, making its way past or through the lengthy queues of cars all trying to access the car parks, within minutes, the bus dropped us off at the main gate. Here we had to prove that we had clear Covid tests, a task we had to perform each day, then to show our tickets, badges in our case, before being let loose on the 2021 “Festival of Speed”. With, already, this early in the morning, the roars of powerful and expensive motors in our ears, we set off, to explore. I am not going to describe each day in detail as I would be writing for hours, needless to say, every day was an experience, every minute was an experience as you encountered array after array of some of the world’s finest motors. Add motoring celebrities past and present, stars of stage, screen, and TV, the hill climb, the rally stage, the off roaders, exhibits after exhibits – absolutely amazing. No wonder people come year after year. So instead of my preambles, as sometimes my descriptions will not do the days justice, I am going to show the best of the pictures from each day, with suitable captions, selecting said pictures a difficult task in its own right. The thing to remember is we thoroughly enjoyed the 4-day event and wish if the money was available to be able to do it again.
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Festival Of Speed - July
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