Goodwood Festival Of Speed - A - Z

 A

Alarms

What other way to start this list than with the same way I start my days at Goodwood Festival of Speed. Alarms, alarms, and more alarms. Everything is ready the night before and I just need to get out of bed and make the relatively short drive across to Goodwood before the gates open. In 2021 I was 7th in the queue at my gate which made me particularly happy.

It does not matter if you just have a day ticket or a weekender you will be setting alarms and you will be milking the most out of every available second that this event is open.

Air Show’s

Whilst almost all of the action is on the ground it cannot be denied that what happens in the air is just as cool. I have been lucky enough to see the Red Arrows on numerous occasions alongside this I have seen the Blades Aerobatic Team, a display by a Vulcan Bomber, and even the Blue Eagles helicopter display team.

Whilst these magnificent displays are only visible from distance there has been a steady growth in the FOS Air section of the festival where you can get up close with these magnificent machines of the sky.

Accessibility

Now, this can mean a couple of things, having accessibility to the cars, the teams, the drivers, the history but I will go into these enough throughout this list. I want to refer to everything the organisers have done to make the whole event available to all. There is dedicated parking which can be pre-booked (rather than having to remember exactly which bit of field you were in 12hours earlier) There are shuttles which will then take you to and from your car to the gates, these shuttles are also inside should you wish to go up to other sections like the hill climb and rally stage.

There are raised viewing platforms that come complete with recharging facilities for anyone needing a top-up of their electric wheelchairs or mobility scooters, they can even provide you with a mobility scooter should you not want to bring your own. There are even disability-friendly campsites meaning you can experience every aspect of the event even after the gates are closed for the evening.

Autonomous Cars / Trucks / Tractors

In more recent years there has been a growing number of autonomous vehicles at the Festival of Speed, now I will go into Future Lab at FOS later (in the F section if you can imagine that) but some things need to be separated.

A couple of those things are when you round a corner in the exhibitor’s section of the festival and come face to face with things such as a driverless tractor, an Autonomous logging truck or in fact, just a truck with no recognisable cab for a driver. These weird and wonderful machines that you can just stumble across in the middle of a festival dedicated to speed are amazing. I never knew I wanted to read about a rechargeable logging truck but do you know what I did, and I was fascinated. In some ways, I looked at this vehicle just as much as the latest Ferrari racing past in the background.

Awestruck

Sometimes… and my wife would probably say a lot more than sometimes, I forget I am not an 8-year-old child anymore. This happens almost every 20minutes at the Festival of Speed. The very first time I went to the festival of speed was in 2005 and within minutes I was inches away from a Ford GT40 for the first time in my life. Now I have loved this car since the first moment I saw it in a magazine, it is at the top of my car wish list and is the one car that makes me physically bounce every time I see one. This machine can dazzle me and keep my attention for hours just by being parked in a paddock.

I have seen this happen to many grown men and women but I especially see it in children, (sadly not all for the GT40) be it while walking around the paddocks or while at the trackside as the cars roar past, you can look at almost any person attending the event and see them wide-eyed, smiling and open-mouthed, children grabbing their parents hands to point at what they are running off to look at next and then the stop in your tracks moment an engine gets fired up and the noise and smells fill the air. The sights, the sounds and the smells are quite like anywhere else in the world and something every car lover should experience at least once.