Happy Easters at Goodwood
Easter. A time for renewed hope and energy. And motor racing on Easter Monday, one of the sport’s great traditions.
For me, nothing will ever be as good as Goodwood on Easter Monday. Yes, I know we haven’t been there since 1966, but it was such a wonderful event. We went as a family, took a picnic, and sat in our usual seats in the grandstand at the famous Chicane. Anyone who was anybody was there. I savour today the memory of Graham Hill and Jimmy Clark fighting for the lead of the Sunday Mirror Trophy in the spring sunshine of 1965, the last year in which Goodwood held a proper race for Formula 1 cars.
The BRM and Lotus were rarely more than 20 feet apart for the first few laps, with Dan Gurney’s Brabham tucked in behind them. Then Clark passed Hill on the Lavant straight and pulled away, setting a new lap record. The BRM began to falter and Hill dropped back behind Gurney and a young Scot called Jackie Stewart. But the race was far from over. Both Gurney and Stewart retired, leaving Hill in second place, while Clark took victory for the second year running. Fabulous stuff.
Later in the day a spectacular hailstorm came over the Sussex Downs and flooded the circuit just in time for the saloon car race. But this didn’t bother Jimmy Clark, out again in his Lotus Cortina, and winning a waterlogged race from Jack Sears in another Cortina. Those were the days, my friends.
Easter is here again and, away from all the lies and videotapes of Formula 1, there will be plenty of good, honest club racing around the circuits of Britain. And despite the anxieties of this recession, fans and families will make their annual pilgrimage to one of these traditional events. The Formula 3 cars will be at Oulton Park, the Superbikes at Brands Hatch and just up the road from us, at Thruxton, there’s a decent programme of national championship racing run by the BARC, which would in the old days have been orchestrating the events at Goodwood. There I go again.
Further afield, the A1GP series will be at the new Portimao circuit in southern Portugal, where Tonio Liuzzi will race for Team Italy. Liuzzi’s talent is largely wasted at Force India where he is test driver at a time when testing is banned during the season. But don’t be too surprised if he takes over from Giancarlo Fisichella before we get to Abu Dhabi in November. By all accounts, the new Grand Prix track in the Algarve is pretty impressive and there will be a good crowd there this weekend to cheer on Felipe Albuquerque at his home race.
So Happy Easter everyone, wherever you are, whatever your plans for this welcome break from the usual schedule. I doubt, however, that there will be much rest at Brackley, where the opposition is growing gradually larger in the mirrors of Jenson Button’s Brawn-Mercedes. Speaking of Mercedes, it must surely be pinning its hopes on an older, wiser young man from Britain this year.
Newsprint is tomorrow’s cat litter. Broadcasts come and go. But damage has been done. Eggs (well, it is Easter) have been broken and egos dented. Easter Monday at Goodwood suddenly seems like a very different world. Yet the sport survives and there’s much to look forward to in the coming months.
Filed under: Blogs, Miscellaneous
Tags: Goodwood
Rob was brought up on racing, being taken to Goodwood as a small child and devouring his father’s copies of Motor Sport. During a career in newspaper, radio and TV journalism he created the ‘Track Torque’ motorsport show on radio and was Indycar commentator for Eurosport before co-founding the Festival of Speed and Revival events. He was marketing director of the Goodwood Road Racing Company. 
Rich Ambroson:
April 13th, 2009 5:51pm
Hope you had a lovely Easter Sunday, Rob!
I wish I had been around in times when Easter Monday meant Goodwood. An altogether more civilized time, it seems from what I’ve read, and the pictures I love to see.
Cheers,
Rich
rob widdows:
April 14th, 2009 9:51am
I went to Goodwood on Easter Monday! Sat on a grassy bank by the Chicane, soaked up the Spring sunshine and watched members of the Goodwood Road Racing Club compete in a Sprint. That’s one flying lap from a standing start. Not as good as racing, of course, but some nice cars and a lovely atmosphere. And the cars in the car parks were pretty desirable as well. I parked my little Modus next to a Ferrari Dino and oppsoite a Morris Minor which had what looked and sounded like a V8 behind the front seats………Ah, only the English……….
So, Easter at Goodwood lives on, if it is now only a Sprint for those lucky enough to have a suitable motor car.
Off on a short holiday now which means finding a bar with a TV on which to watch the Grand Prix in Shanghai. If only all challenges were as simple and enjoyable……!
RW
Dave Cubbedge:
April 14th, 2009 4:18pm
You guys have Goodwood, over here in Ohio we have Eldora Speedway! I was there Saturday night to see the USAC Sprint Cars. Racing was excellent, track owner Tony Stewart was there and the cheddarwurst might be the best track food ever! Weather was great, sunshine and temps in the 50s. There were several flips, one hospitalized. Lots of passing on the dirt and the 3rd place guy (Jessie “The Rocket” Hockett) started 16th, which is a pretty good run in 30 half-mile laps. Nice to get this race in, usually it rains here in early April…
Tony Churly:
April 19th, 2009 1:31pm
I know everyone gets misty eyed about Goodwood but as someone raised on the less than sun baked expanses of Snetterton in the 50s, I confess I found Goodwood elitist and claustrophobic.
Unless you had the right badge in your blazer buttonhole then it was hard to spectate anywhere really worthwhile. The revival is a spectacular recreation of those days all be it with a better standard of dress than I remember as a kid. Now if the whole crowd wore battered gaberdine raincoats and caps that had seen better days ….. But after all that Archie Scott-Brown held the lap record and as a Snetterton lad he was my hero.
Walter R:
April 22nd, 2009 8:56am
See you cant get away we find you everywhere. Really enjoy your stories and writing.
Probably not too many realise that you had an illustrious career in New Zealand as motor sport commentator.
Not only that you are not a bad sailor either.
WAL
robwiddows:
April 22nd, 2009 1:06pm
Hello everyone, especially my old mate Walter down there in New Zealand. Great to read all your comments, as ever.
I should explain my absence from Planet Blog, my friends.
Here I am, in a cafe in Corfu, having watched the Chinese GP with Greek commentary (a heady mixture) and on Friday I am off to Bahrain for the GP and for an audience with Mr Ecclestone’s collection of racing cars, 24 of which have been shipped out to the Gulf as part of the spectacle at the circuit in the desert. Meanwhile, of course, I must make my way from Greece to England to facilitate the next part of my travels.
I find myself working in many unusual places, thanks to the invention of the laptop computer and my restless urge to keep abrast of the motor racing that I love.
Today, then, I am tapping away in an “internet cafe” in the little coastal village of Agios Stefanos. Elsewhere in the ‘Three Ws’ cafe (stands for www as in the web, I guess) there is the usual game of darts. An Englishman named Neill is taking on several locals, taking his mind off the fact that he has just crashed his Peugeot on the tortuous roads that criss-cross the island. The excuse he chose from the famous ‘book of driver excuses’ was that he lost it on a mixture of rainwater and olive oil. Right. Anyway, he spun, and hit the bank which was a great deal better than going over a nasty drop into the valley below.
Talking of drivers, what a boy is this Vettel. Pure talent. If, and it’s a very big if, a battle ensues between Brawn and Red Bull, then we are in for a vintage season. But don’t count out McLaren and Ferrari, not yet anyway. Diffusers can be made. And of course we must never forget Mr Alonso, talented and so extremely hungry.
See you after the race in Bahrain, and a long, loving look at some of Mr E’s wonderful cars.
RW
a.eglington:
May 12th, 2009 6:17pm
1965! Yes I was standing at Lavant corner enjoying my traditional Easter Monday at Goodwood.Thanks for bringing back memories of that incredible hailstorm which proved beyond any doubt that Jim really could walk on water.Great days when races were decided on the track and not in a stewards enquiry