Goodwood Festival of Speed

The last time I was at Goodwood, I was thrashing my Cappuccino around the actual circuit with a Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo behind me! This was a slightly less frantic day. Suzuki motorbikes were looking to put a Suzuki car on their stand, unfortunately, due to the sponsorship deals going on, the only cars allowed in were either from the sponsoring companies or they were classic cars. Step in one Suzuki Cappuccino (We were at the Classic Car Show after all!) It had been a last minute request and apart from an 8 Hour endurance race on the Saturday I had nothing else planned! 🙂 We needed to take a support vehicle, as we had to leave Friday night for our venue at Lydd plus carry SCORE posters and banners so the Mini and the Cappuccino took a leisurely drive down. So much so, that the 102mile journey only used up ¼ of a tank of petrol! The weekend started on the Friday with a nice day and the Cappuccino washed, polished and roof tucked away.<BR>It was quite an uneventful weekend, apart from the weather and we spent our time chatting to visitors to the stand and nipping off for a good look at all the old, very old or ancient cars and bikes that were dotted around the site. This is what people had really come to see and I’ve got to admit there was nothing like the scream of some of the older Formula 1 cars to send a shiver down the spine. Lotus had a whole family of cars going back along its racing heritage including one of my favourites, the JPS Lotus, in its black and gold livery and there were vintage race bikes as well as more modern vehicles around. The
most amazing thing must be the fact that all these cars worked (well most of them) and the crowd pushed and shoved to get a glimpse of the cars starting warming up and finally completing a lap around Goodwood House.

And It Rained

Cor, did it rain. Alex Clouter generously looked after my car on the Saturday as I had a Pro-Kart Race, where it also chucked down. It was so heavy that they stopped the race at 6hours instead of 8hours! By the time we turned up on the Sunday, the car park was quagmire and I tested out my Mini rally skills to a suitable parking place. <BR>This was generally how Sunday continued, with a couple of SCORE members turning up to say hello, though I had a suspicion that Clive and Yvonne knew something as they came fully clothed with umbrellas and wellington boots! <BR>We also met some Cappuccino owners that didn’t know of SCORE and we quickly converted them into memberships by plying them with froth cards. With things calming down towards the end of Sunday, we managed to sneak away ½ hour early to try and miss the traffic, though sadly not the weather. All in all, we had a fun time. Thanks go to Suzuki for their hospitality and to the friendly faces that made up the Suzuki stand that weekend.