The 2011 Goodwood Revival will be staged 16-18 September on the celebrated Goodwood Circuit in West Sussex, England, with mouth-watering grids, scintillating on-track action and a number of significant anniversaries to celebrate.
The 2011 Revival is set to build on the success of last year’s event, when a record-breaking 134,000 people attended over the weekend. As ever, the Revival aims to offer visitors a chance to revel in the romance and glamour of motor racing as it used to be. It is the only sporting event in the world set entirely to a period theme and, every year, spectators and competitors take a step back in time by getting into the carefree Goodwood spirit. The majority of visitors enter into the spirit of the event, dressing in appropriate clothing from the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s.
This weekend’s Goodwood Revival event will offer an action-packed weekend of historic motor racing and period theatre for all the family, as always – with much more besides. The following is a summary of all the on- and off-track activity:
Highlighted Races
Royal Automobile Club TT Celebration race (one hour, two driver)
The one-hour, two-driver Royal Automobile Club TT Celebration race remains the jewel in the Revival’s crown. Nowhere else in the world will you see such a spectacular grid of super-rare GT cars racing in anger, driven by great aces past and present. The grid will once again feature a breathtaking £100+ million array of internationally-renowned historic cars. Expect to see Ferrari 250 GTO, GT SWB and 330 LMB; Aston Martin DB4GT, Zagato and Project cars; plus AC Cobra and the rare Shelby Daytona.
(See 2010 Goodwood Revival – Royal Automobile Club TT Celebration Results and Photos)
Fordwater Trophy – For Jaguar E-Types of a type that raced up to 1966
This year’s Fordwater Trophy will feature a grid exclusively made up of Jaguar E-types, in celebration of the model’s 50th anniversary. It will be a 45-minute two-driver race, with driver changes in the pits between 15 and 30 minutes. With a mixture of lightweights, roadsters, fixed head coupés and low drag coupés, it should make for an intriguing spectacle and a fitting tribute to Britain’s most popular sports car and its special relationship with Goodwood.
Star Drivers and Riders
Well-known faces from most motor sport disciplines will be in action at this year’s Goodwood Revival, including Formula One stars, rally winners, endurance racing champions, tin top tearaways and top bikers; often competing in the most unlikely of machines.
Touring Car talent will be campaigning hard in 1960s saloons in the St Mary’s Trophy race, including DTM star (and eight-time Le Mans winner) Tom Kristensen, four-time World Touring Car Champion Andy Priaulx, and BTCC legends John Cleland, Anthony Reid, Paul Radisich, Darren Tuner, Alec Poole, Tony Dron and Patrick Watts.
These tin top racers will be joined by Scandinavian rallying greats Stig Blomqvist and Rauno Aaltonen, plus ex-Grand Prix stars Martin Brundle, Emanuele Pirro, Jochen Mass, Derek Bell, Richard Attwood, Tiff Needell, Desire Wilson, Brian Redman, Jackie Oliver, Vern Schuppan and Arturo Merzario, who are all sure to entertain the Revival spectators.
Many of these famous faces will also be racing wheel-to-wheel in more powerful machinery at the Revival, including the Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy Celebration race, and the Fordwater Trophy, which this year is being held exclusively for competition Jaguar E-types as this iconic British sportscar celebrates its half-century.
Expect to see Red Bull F1 team principal Christian Horner, Red Bull Chief Technical Director Adrian Newey, ex-Ferrari F1 driver Gerhard Berger, Jaguar’s 1988 Le Mans winner Andy Wallace, and Peugeot’s endurance ace Nicolas Minassian. Goodwood stalwarts Sir Stirling Moss, Sir Jackie Stewart, Murray Walker and Barrie ‘Whizzo’ Williams will also be in attendance.
Motorcycling heroes will include Isle of Mann TT stars Charlie Williams, Trevor Nation, Mick Grant, Ian Simpson, Chas Mortimer, Cameron Donald, Stuart Graham, Stan Woods and Keith Amor, plus World and British Superbike riders Andrew Pitt and Michael Rutter.
Special Anniversaries and Parades
Tribute to Juan Manuel Fangio
The annual feature tribute will be to Juan Manuel Fangio, on the centenary of his birth and 60th anniversary of him winning the first of his five world championships. A daily track parade will include a variety of his most famous cars, to honour the life and achievements of this incredible man.
Fangio raced twice at Goodwood, with his best result at the West Sussex circuit being second in the challenging BRM V16 P15 on 26 September 1953. This legendary BRM will be just one of over 25 of the most famous cars that Fangio drove.
Other significant cars forming part of the tribute will include three important Mercedes-Benz racers being sent over especially from the marque’s Stuttgart-based Museum – Fangio’s ex-300 SLR, W196 and W196 Streamliner. His Alfa Romeo Tipo 158/9 ‘Alfetta’, Ferrari 290 MM and 860 Monzas, Gordini Type 15s and 16, Maserati 250F, 300S and 450S, Jaguar C-type, Talbot-Lago Type 26S and Kurtis Kraft-Offenhauser ‘Dayton Steel Foundry Special’ Indy car will also form part of the daily parade.
Two of his earliest racing cars are also being shipped over specifically for the Revival from the Fundación Fangio in Argentina – his famous 1939 Chevrolet Coupe TC and the 1947 Volpi Chevrolet ‘La Petisa’ – the first time these cars have come to the UK.
In addition to Fangio’s famous race cars, several former teammates that competed with the great man will be on hand, including Sir Stirling Moss and Hans Herrman, as well as Tony Brooks and Maria Teresa de Filippis.
80th anniversary of Freddie March’s Historic Brooklands Double Twelve Victory
Goodwood will pay homage to Lord March’s grandfather – Freddie March, the Ninth Duke of Richmond – on the 80th anniversary of his historic win for the Works MG racing team in the famous Brooklands Double Twelve race of 1931.
The Ninth Duke was an accomplished racing driver, taking many victories for both the MG and Austin works teams at Brooklands in the 1930s, before going on to establish the celebrated Goodwood Motor Circuit in 1948, the scene of Britain’s first post-War public motor racing event, and now home to the Goodwood Revival.
Goodwood will mark the 80th anniversary of Freddie March’s important 1931 race win with the MG team of five cars that he created, by staging an authentic recreation of the MG team’s Brooklands paddock at the Revival, including a line-up of supercharged racing MG C-type Midgets from the early 1930s.
At least six authentic racing MG C-types will be on display at the 2011 Revival, including two Midgets that competed in the Brooklands Double Twelve endurance race. A total of 13 C-types were entered in the Double Twelve in May 1931, with the MGs securing the coveted team trophy, as well as the top five places, with Freddie March taking the chequered flag.
100 Years of Ford of Great Britain
From humble family saloons to racing icons, lusty sports cars to military vehicles, and rally legends to commercial workhorses, Ford of Great Britain has been responsible for some of the most iconic vehicles ever to grace Britain’s roads and race tracks. This year the company celebrates its centenary, and the Revival will celebrate with a parade of the greatest and most instantly recognisable vehicles from those 100 years.
Motocross Champions
This year’s Revival will celebrate a branch of two-wheeled sport at which Britons were once dominant. Motocross was a hugely popular sport on British television in the 1960s, and this parade, featuring seven past champions from that period, will evoke memories of that era.
75 Years of the Spitfire
This year marks the 75th anniversary of arguably the most famous fighter plane of all time. The Supermarine Spitfire first flew in 1936, and went on to become a true icon, credited with helping the RAF win the Battle of Britain. Having served as a Spitfire base during World War II, Goodwood is a particularly fitting venue to celebrate this anniversary, with an incredible gathering of aircraft, and a spectacular mass scramble where all the planes will take off in close formation.
Earls Court Motor Show
The Earls Court Motor Show at the Goodwood Revival takes its inspiration from the celebrated London Motor Shows of the 1950s and 60s, with an Art Deco frontage reminiscent of the glory days of exhibitions of the past. This spacious area will give the expected 135,000+ Goodwood Revival visitors an insight into how the motoring of tomorrow might look from a pre-1966 perspective, with a display of ‘futuristic’ late-20th and early-21st century cars.
Externally, Earls Court looks like the entrance to a 1950s Motor Show, promising to display ‘beautiful cars of the past, present and future’ inside. As no post-1966 vehicles are ordinarily allowed on site during the Goodwood Revival, the Earls Court Motor Show enables the event to break out of its ‘period’ timeframe and display later vehicles. The effect is like walking into a time warp, offering other-worldly futuristic new cars to see, right up to and including manufacturers’ latest products.
Goodwood’s historic links with Earls Court are strong. The famous London Earls Court exhibition site was built on land once owned by the Duke of Richmond; the Earl in the name referring to the Earl of March, from whom the present 10th Duke of Richmond, and his son Lord March, are directly descended.
To order advance tickets for 2011 Goodwood Revival, please contact the Ticket Hotline:
Telephone: +44 (0)1243 755055
Fax: +44 (0)1243 755058
Email: ticket.office@goodwood.com
Book online: www.goodwood.com/motorsport
[Source: Goodwood; photo credit: Goodwood; Tim Scott / Fluid Images]
