2016 Goodwood Revival: A day at the races

The Goodwood Revival in the UK is the way motor racing used to be, and perhaps should still be.

SOME say – and it’s hard to disagree – that modern four-wheeled motorsport, particularly at the highest levels, has become dull. Sterile cars, sterile drivers, sterile tracks. Even hardened F1 fans are tiring of this year’s Mercedes-Hamilton-Rosberg walk in the park.

It all began in 1998 when the honourable Lord March invited all and sundry to his ancestral estate for a weekend of historic racing.

It was a hit, and now it’s the most sought-after event for owners, drivers and spectators.

The mood is contagious. Every song the band plays is a 2000-strong singalong and dance party. A bloke who has no right to even be vertical shimmies up a tent pole and swings from the roof doing gymnastic manoeuvres 10 metres above the crowd. They go wild. Two identically clad and very attractive ’60s ‘airline hosties’ do the same on the other two poles, crimpalene skirts hitched up over their hips. The crowd goes wild again.

This is a motorsport event, though, and the cars and the racing are still the highlights: Four D-Type Jaguars drifting through Magwicks nose to tail in a noisy ballet; Tom Kristensen’s masterful charge through the field in the beautiful silver Ferrari 250 SWB, headlights blazing at dusk on Friday night; the race-long battle between a Cobra and an E-Type at the head of the RAC TT on Sunday afternoon. That last battle culminated in the Jag tapping the Cobra off track on the penultimate lap and after the race the winner smoked a cigar while the vanquished explained there was no grip. They embraced after the interview.