Mud, glorious mud... Theres something particularly squelchy and glutinous about the mud at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in fact, veteran World Rally Champions like Stig Blomqvist commented that the chalk-based mud on the excellent extended Forest Rally Stage was different from anything else theyd experienced in their careers.
And different from anything else youve experienced is a good description of the Festival of Speed: now in its 15th year, the gathering of race and rally cars and motorcycles in Lord Marchs glorious back yard shows no sign of losing its sell-out, six-figure visitor appeal. The secret is hard to define, because it is many-faceted. Every year the Goodwood team find different cars to wow the connoisseurs, boost any areas where the event was weak (such as child appeal, in the early days) and sweet-talk top sponsors and motorsport teams to maintain the event as the peak of the motorsport calendar an event now seen as so important that every current British F1 driver and a very high proportion of past drivers feel that its an event they must attend.
Lewis Hamilton was there almost mobbed by crowds yet remarkably cool and collected, he made two runs up the hill in Sundays rain. Jenson Button battled up the hill in the rain on Saturday, not in a race car but on a bicycle, in a brave attempt to disprove the cynics who say hes enjoyed too much of the social side of the F1 scene. He rode well, but sadly finished at the back of the field; with top British cycle racers as competition, it would have seemed a noble failure, had it not been for the fact that the winner was not one of the pro cyclists, but current World Superbike Champion Troy Bayliss, adding a most unexpected yet hugely impressive two-wheel victory to his collection.
The historic cars and bikes behaved almost impeccably and some very fast and heroic times were set up the straw bale-lined hillclimb, with FTD set by Pikes Peak Hillclimb champ Rod Millen in his 1998 Toyota Tacoma Pick-up, a phenomenal one-off four-wheel drive hillclimb special with 900bhp to play with. By contrast, the modern supercar runs were beset with problems, at least one car crashing each day highlighting the importance of specialist tuition for anyone buying a supercar: it really should be made a legal requirement.

Personal highlights this year included:
Bill Milliken, well into his 90s, sitting in his bizarre 1960 Camber Car with its wheels leaning at 45 degrees, chatting animatedly to spectators;
The immaculately prepared gas turbine Howmet TX, the twin-fan Chaparral-Chevrolet and the twin-boom Tarf-Gilera in the Convention-defying paddock;
Spotting World Rally Championship stars Markko Martin and Matthew Wilson chatting happily on the Ford stand, apparently ignored by spectators;
Five Bugatti Royales, parked together on the grass and open for spectators to wander around, lean into and drool over without let or hindrance;
Superb and tasteful Toyota Motorsport 50 year display outside Goodwood House, cars suspended high in the air yet as if following in each other on a wonderful swooping road;
Gary Gabelichs Blue Flame and a superb re-creation of the Bonneville Salt Flats on the cricket pitch, complete with beaten-up 50s pick-ups with starting plates to push the record cars;
Jenson Button grinning to the crowds while giving his best on the Milk Race cycle event.
Well done, Goodwood: roll on next year!
Malcolm McKay, Motorbase News Editor