Beginners guide to Goodwood Revival
TO THE uninitiated, the Goodwood Revival, may seem like a deeply strange event. Retro it most certainly is, but the sight of thousands of people – many of whom are old enough to know better – dressed in all manner of conflicting period garb is a cynical sod’s delight.
Was that a Mod talking to a WWII US GI…? Did you see the size of the beer-gut on that hippy…? How old was that woman in that Some Like It Hot dress… When are the rockers going to kick off? Perhaps when their hips have eased off a bit… All the ‘theatre’ and attractions do make the Revival a bit of a Disney theme park approach to a race meeting – or, if you aren’t in such a generous frame of mind then it can seem like a particularly harrowing episode of ‘Dr Who’.
To be so post-modern and po-faced though, is to be completely and utterly wrong. The Revival aims to recapture the bygone art of innocent fun. An attempt to reunite Revivalers with an attitude that precedes the cynical sneering and posturing which has infected contemporary society since the Eighties. Bugger all that – dress up, have a few drinks, have a laugh and you might even catch some jolly good racing too.
It has been five years since I last attended this bash and I can see many differences. ‘Dep-O’ hit Goodwood en-masse on Friday in the anticipation that it would be quiet and therefore easier to work. Wrong! It was packed – much more so than that Saturday in 2002 – despite equally sizzling sunshine being present then as now. The only thing I could suggest is that whereas the Revival used to attract retro racing fans eager to snort heavily on all the old school speed, now its attraction is far more mainstream. People come to the Revival, because they want to come to the Revival. It has morphed into a blue-chip society event dripping with Castrol R – a must-do event for fancy-dress throwback fanatics.
Now, whilst the word ‘society’ quite rightly sets off alarm bells, it also means that the Revival, like its sister event the Festival Of Speed, attracts the best cars in pre 1968 retro motorsport – and until you see someone throw a Ferrari 250GT SWB ‘Breadvan’ around Goodwood with little regard for its value, you’re not going to understand the appeal of these seldom seen beauts.
When you first enter the site, the sheer choice of things to do and see is bewildering, so make sure you get there in plenty of time and have plenty of green-folding because things ain’t cheap. However, before you actually get to the weekend, we’d advise you to check what access privileges your ticket has – a general admittance ticket only allows you on site and denies you from pit-lane access and even taking a pew in one of the Grandstands – so check before you buy or bring your own bum sling.
No matter where your interests lie, you’ll find something that will stop you in your tracks and reduce you to the role of a staring moron – and no, that isn’t a sideways reference to the Glam-Cabs girls.
Bikes, scooters, vans, tractors, aeroplanes, you name it, it was there willing and able to float your boat. There were a couple of motor shows, rides in a de Havilland Dragon Rapide airliner, spivs roaming the crowd attempting to sell knock-off watches and some fantastic WWII fighters proved that when it comes to attention-grabbing nothing outperforms the Supermarine Spitfire.
Favourites which we stumbled across included a beautiful Lotus 33, the recreation of AFN’s premises to mark the 60th anniversary of Porsche, a sadly silent BRM V16, an amazing early Sixties Honda T360 pick-up, the entire St Mary’s Trophy entry list – especially John Fitzpatrick’s deafening A95 Westminster and John Haugland’s bonkers 1957 Tatra T603 – a sweet Ruddspeed liveried Bedford van and a FIAT 600 Multipla. Track highlights? It had to be the all guts ’n’ glory styles of the drivers in the RAC TT Celebration session who, despite being in charge of cars worth more than most people’s houses, gave it their all.
If you can afford the time and the cash, the Goodwood Revival really is worth visiting for a couple of days, because we stayed until chucking out time and still we only saw a fraction of what was going on. As to whether the Revival stands up to two visits over two consecutive years, well, you’ll have to wait to hear about that in 2009.
In the meantime, savour the sights and sounds of 2008 Goodwood Revival and for the complete sensory experience, just gently sniff some Castrol R…
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