Ringing the changes and coming up with new un-missable attractions every year for an event like the Goodwood Festival of Speed is a monumental challenge, yet somehow they still achieve it. Among the most spectacular displays at this years event on June 22-24 will be the conversion of Goodwoods historic cricket pitch (one of the oldest in England) into a perfect replica of the Bonneville Salt Flats, as the Festival celebrates Bonneville Speed Week with many cars never seen before outside the USA.
Cars now confirmed to be on display range from the 1960 Challenger 1 a stunning 400mph+ quad-engined beast to The Blue Flame, which is a bullet-shaped rocket-powered vehicle that reached an astounding 630.478mph in 1970 and held the World Land Speed Record for 13 years. Joining them will be everything from early Ford Coups and a clutch of famous speed record MGs, to the contemporary JCB DieselMax that broke records in 2006 and hopes to do so again later this year. In all there will be around a dozen of the most significant and famous Bonneville racers present, around half of which will be brought over from the USA specifically for the occasion.
Accompanying them will be Bonneville legend Al Teague, who will be at the Festival for the first time with his famous Spirit of 76, for many years the worlds fastest piston-powered vehicle with a Bonneville terminal speed of 409mph. Equally streamlined, but rather smaller and more quirky, is the 1949 SoCal belly-tank, which achieved 198mph from a vehicle built around a modified P38 fighter plane fuel tank.
The overall Spark of Genius theme for 2007 Festival of Speed will celebrate the glory of the individual racers and engineering visionaries who took risks and made sacrifices in their quest for victory. To honour these superb motoring milestones, the selection of machinery on the Goodwood hill will include a spectacular array of ground-breaking competition cars, which either redefined the technical possibilities of the age or allowed the driver to achieve the seemingly impossible.
To order advance tickets, please contact the Ticket Hotline: +44 (0)1243 755055, Email: bookings@goodwood.co.uk or book online at: www.goodwood.co.uk
'By Malcolm McKay'
