Goodwood Festival Of Speed - A - Z

Q

Quaint

I have spent a lot of time talking about the huge sprawling and loud and busy the whole festival is so it might seem a little odd that I would now throw in the word quaint. A word that refers to something much smaller and sweeter, far removed from what you might think from the rest of this article.

As with the performance car parking if you know where to look you can find these perfect little spots to just relax and unplug for a while. Two of them are right next to each other, The first is cathedral walk, a wide channel that runs between two rows of tall trees casting a welcome bit of shade as well as reducing some of the sounds from the events going on around you.

If you want to be a little closer to the action yet still have a little bit of a slower pace then head up cathedral walk towards Cartier ‘Style Et Luxe’, you can then take a very short step to the left and you will be at the Veuve Cliquot Bar, this bar set within a small number of trees which again cast a nice shadow for the whole day. From here you can see the stables, Cartier ‘style et luxe’, from here you will often have the front row seat for the one-off cars, I am thinking of the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport, setup in its huge glass and metal box, the Lancia inspired Evo37 from Kimera Automobili set up on a simple set of ramps then the 60th anniversary De Tomaso, a deep red car with gold alloys sat atop a bright blue plinth with Goodwood house as a background.

The final one I will mention (again) is the cricket green, if you can get out into the middle then soak in the sun, if you want to sit and eat you can do this in the shade given by the various bench areas, covered with fabric roofs but open on every side to ensure you are never fully cut off from what’s going on around you. I have no doubt I have missed a few spots so go explore and find these perfect little spots for a rest and a bite to eat.

Queue

Now I almost hate to say it but it is almost an inevitability that for an event of this size and with so much going on you will be in a queue at some point, So I come along the A27 and before I fully committed to my 12 hour days and arrived a little later I would always get caught up in the stream of cars jostling for position right back and before the Boxgrove roundabout. I often said they should cone off the road just after the roundabout and the petrol station so anyone on the right would have to carry on to Chichester and beyond and the cars on the left would funnel into the festival. The amount of… bold let’s call them bold… drivers who would stream down the right-hand lane then at the last second dive into a teeny tiny gap on the left, I have even seen cars fully stop in the right-hand lane and wait there until a gap appears. Fortunately, I get in way ahead of this madness nowadays.

The QR code scanning system implemented in recent years has made the entry much faster and smoother so even if you arrive and there appears to be a large wait for the gate, I can assure you it won’t take long to get in. There are the queues I have mentioned before to get a photo of your favourite bike, car or driver, the extra bit of time to take part in some of the experiences and also have your go with the various activities on the stands.

Although there is a real plethora of food and drink options spread across the site you will nearly always have to join a queue, this starts in the early morning as you wait for a sausage and bacon baguette, at lunch when you want a nice cool and refreshing beer in the midday sun or even a hot burger and chips under a brolly in the rain shower that passes over head.

Finally, and again this all depends on your route home but if you leave at the wrong time of the day and head West you will fairly quickly come across tailbacks feeding back from the top of the hill at the White Swan where the road goes down to one lane through Arundel and this will always take a fair amount of time to work your way through.

 Some easy ways to avoid this are –

A. Leave the festival much later so you can avoid the end of day queues from the festival and also those people just heading home from school and work

2. Go to Chichester and watch a film at the cinema, this is my preferred option, it's not very far away and buys you a couple of hours in order to have a smoother ride home

D. Book a table and have a nice meal in a local restaurant, there are so many options in and around the festival / Chichester that you can choose pretty much anything you like to end your day or weekend discussing everything you have seen and done with your family and friends.

Quandary

As you sit in the car on the way home or at that restaurant you found conversation will inevitably turn to two things, what was the best bit of the day / weekend and what car would you take from the festival if you could.

It does not matter if you are 8 or 80 there will be a debate, there will be discussions and I am sorry to tell you this but there will be disagreements. You have the loud and decisive member of your family who will proclaim very quickly, the best bit was … and there’s nothing you can do or say to change their mind. Then there are the quiet thinkers who will ponder and debate internally before coming to a well-formed response as to what their choice was and how they made it. You will even have the excited person who very quickly reels off twelve different things that were all their favourite.

This is great but no matter the type of person and response you can always guarantee a sentence that starts with – well yes but what about … - will lead to some serious rethinks and yet more debate. It's not made any easier by expanding the categories and banning picks, as an example in my car coming home, we have the following –

-          I am not allowed to pick a GT40 – This even extends to the newer GTs - Even if it is widely agreed that the MK2 on show in 2019 with its orange, black and white paintwork was a stunning car I am still not allowed to pick it (booooo).

-          You can pick from the following categories – 1 bike, 1 Supercar, 1 Road car, 1 Rally car, 1 luxury car, 1 old car, 1 new car, 1 F1 car (of any era)

Now clearly there are some crossovers in the categories so you can be a little smarter and pick a supercar then another one as your old car and then another one as your new car. I can tell you now though that this will not help you as there are still not enough categories and you can just go wasting picks because there will always be another car out there that someone will be along to remind you of in a minute.

Fingers crossed you either figure it out by the time you get home or everyone else has fallen asleep so you can mutter under your breath that it's clearly the GT40.

Quirky

In amongst the sleek and refined machines that adorn 90% of the available display space there is of course that remaining percentage of cars that are just a little bit out there in terms of both ideas and execution, the obvious ones that come to mind are the Williams FW08B with its six wheels, the previously mentioned ‘Street-fighter’ jet bike, there’s even been a fan car in the shape of the Brabham BT46B.

I will never forget when I saw the enormous wing on the Chaparral 2E, or even the rear of the Chaparral 2J which genuinely looked like it had a washing machine and tumble dryer attached to the back of it. Some of the ideas are quirky and work and some of the ideas don’t, some of the ideas work so well they are banned from competition but that does not stop you from getting a look at them here and even watching some of them attempt the hill climb.

Even the hill climb itself is subjected to an odd attempt here and there with a two-wheeled bike being ridden up on one wheel, a four-wheeled car being driven up on two and when then a drag car that decided to have a go it was also predominantly on two wheels, however, these were the rear wheels and required a wheelie bar to stop the front wheels lifting off the ground too far. It put on a hell of a show while doing it though.

Quality

You could make the argument that due to the sheer number of vehicles and the size of the festival that the odd bit of below-par setup here or a slip in standards there would be forgiven, even perhaps acceptable but no, absolutely not. You don’t become one of the premier car events in the world with such a high reputation by having these standards slip.

Of course, there has been a lot of practice over the years as the festival has been refined, items and events added or removed to meet a changing world, the focus on the future not just of the festival but also the automotive industry is at the forefront of the organiser's minds.

This is matched only by the owners, exhibitors, manufacturers and drivers who turn up year after year, their enthusiasm and knowledge of their machine is second to none and they will gladly share that wisdom with you, going down into some of the smallest details to make sure you get the fullest most rounded experience possible.

The waiting list to appear at the festival must be huge and when speaking with the lady, (who I believe was Elaine Nagamatsu but I could be wrong) beside Old Yeller it was very clear that for years they had planned to bring the car across from the states just so it could appear at the festival, you could even contribute to a book they had by adding a drawing or a note.

This event truly means something to everyone who attends it and no matter what has bought you to where you are standing right you are part of it, that impact, that legacy is what adds quality to every inch of this place.