Unless you’re armed with a map, navigating your way around the Goodwood Festival of Speed can be infuriating, but, at the same time a lot of fun. With so much on display sprawled across the vast estate, you’ll likely find that unless you make a concerted effort, you’ll miss a good deal of what is on offer.
The paddock area tends to garner a lot of attention, this is where you can get up close to iconic motor racing cars and mingle with both professional and amateur drivers. The biggest thrill for many in this area is the when they fire up the raucous engines for some last minute tuning prior to heading out onto the circuit.
As fun as exploring the paddock was, Mike and I wanted to see some of the newer cars on display and in particular some of the modern high-end luxury vehicles.
Our first stop was the Bentley stand to investigate the Bentayga, the pinnacle of SUV technology and a car we would be putting through its paces a few days later at Millbrook’s Proving Ground. There’s no doubt that the Bentayga is a ‘Marmite’ car, you’ll either love its looks or you won’t. Inside, it’s a piece of luxury art and feels every part of its £162,000+ starting price. Everywhere you look, it screams luxury and would be a treat for anyone to travel in it. The exterior on the other hand still divides opinion, I sit in the middle on this, it’s certainly not as traditionally beautiful as other cars in the existing Bentley line-up, but I also appreciate that it is, first and foremost, an SUV and therefore must offer a good degree of practicality.
Very soon, I’ll be publishing the Millbrook Bentayga piece, a rare opportunity to take a nigh-on £200,000 car onto some of the UK’s most extreme surfaces and tricky roads, this will be an ideal opportunity to see what the Bentayga is truly capable of and whether my opinion still sits in the middle.
Other stands we visited included Jaguar/Land Rover, BAC, Morgan, Toyota/Lexus and Maserati. We would have gone to more, but afternoon tea at the Clark Pavilion was calling and given how good lunch was, the tea was never going to be sacrificed.
Once again, the food was excellent, and with many of the other guests exploring the festival, we had much of the Clark Pavilion to ourselves. Although Goodwood was packed to the rafters and with cars still speeding around the track, we felt an early exit would be sensible to avoid the traffic. Thus, enjoying all of the day’s memories without any added stress.
(Mike Heybourne and Paul Godbold)
In summary
The Goodwood Festival of Speed is an absolute must for anyone who enjoys motoring, glitz and glamour. It is a perfect day out for individuals or the whole family and can be made even more special by opting for one of the hospitality packages. The option to experience the first class service made the Festival of Speed more special for my guest and me. But, even without the advantages of a hospitality ticket, we would still have had an amazing day at what is probably the world’s greatest motoring showcase.
Goodwood Festival of Speed Facts and Figures.
- 12 miles of trackway
- 1 million litres of water on site
- Over 498,000 tickets and wristbands in total for FOS
- 1000 picnic benches
- Enough temporary power to power Chichester – 15 megawatts
- Approximately 4,500 hay bales are used to set up the Hillclimb and Off-Road Arenas
- Over 200 temporary structures built
- Over 600 radios for the communication network
- Over 300 Exhibitors on site for the Festival of Speed
- Over 2000 signs in and around the event site
Goodwood Festival of Speed – Where and how
Goodwood House
Chichester,
West Sussex,
PO18 0PX
Tel: 01243 755000
Web: www.goodwood.com
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