The Goodwood Revival is thought by many to be the largest historic race meeting in the world and the only sporting event held entirely to a period theme, recalling, with great attention to detail, the glory days of the circuit that saw action between 1948–1966. Taking place over the weekend of September 16–18, this was the eighth and most ambitious yet, with extra amenities and displays. A tribute parade honored Sir Jackie Stewart, recalling 40 years since his first season in Formula One and his maiden victory at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
Each race is named after a trophy awarded in Goodwood’s heyday and the first on the racecard was the Goodwood Trophy for 1948–1954 Grand Prix, Formula 2 and Formula Libre cars. This has always provided a frantic event opener and this year was no exception. Mark Gillies had put his ERA A-type R3A on pole ahead of Ludovic Lindsay with his B-type R5B “Remus”. This order was reversed at the checker but not before two red-flag stoppages, first for an incident involving Willie Green and his Maserati 4CLT and then after a collision between Duncan Ricketts and James Diffey who were hotly contesting 2nd place in their ERAs. Willie Green was hospitalized but fortunately his injuries were not life threatening and Ricketts and Diffey sustained only minor damage to their cars. All this let through to 3rd place the previous race winner, the hard-charging Barrie Williams in a Connaught A-type.
Edwin Jowsey dominated the Chichester Cup for rear-engined 1960–1963 Formula Juniors with his Lotus 22. Gavin Pickering’s Lotus 20 gave chase but had to give best to the young Jowsey by 8.3 seconds.
Denis Welch/Merlyn Mk 5 and Mike Hibberd/Lotus 27 stayed in touch. The Whitsun Trophy for 1963–1965 sports-prototypes saw Simon Hancock’s Ford GT40 fend off Colin Blower’s Lola-Chevrolet T70 Spyder and Shaun Lynn in another example of an impressive total of eight Ford GT40s in the entry. Clear winner of the Earl of March Trophy for 1948–1959 500-cc Formula 3 cars was David Lecooq’s 1955 Petty-Norton over Richard Utley/JBS Norton and Rodney Delves/Kieft-Norton CK52.
It was the turn, this year, for 1960–1966 production cars to contest the two-part St. Mary’s Trophy. The rules are tried and tested—the first heat features star drivers and the second the car owners, with the victor on aggregate getting the cup from a Marilyn Monroe look-alike! Where else would you find in one race Le Mans winners (Emanuele Pirro/Jaguar Mk2, Derek Bell/Ford Lotus Cortina Mk 1, and Jackie Oliver/Ford Galaxie 500), a past-World Champion (Alan Jones/Ford Falcon Sprint), Indy stars (Bobby Rahal/Ford Falcon Sprint and Dario Franchitti/Austin Mini Cooper S), an Australian hero (Peter Brock/Vauxhall VX/90), Grand Prix winners (Rene Arnoux/Alfa Romeo GTA and Sir Stirling Moss/Lotus Cortina), not to mention current F1 drivers (Vitantonio Liuzzi/Plymouth Barracuda and Narain Karthikeyan/Lotus Cortina). The race turned out to be a cracker, with Rahal and Liuzzi mixing it with tin-top regulars Jackie Oliver, John Fitzpatrick and Sir John Whitmore. They finished in that order after the retirement of both Rahal and Liuzzi. Karthikeyan took an excellent 4th place, only 6.7 seconds behind the winning Oliver, with Alan Jones in 6th. The owner of Jones’s Ford Falcon Sprint, Leo Voyazides, won the second race by just enough margin to claim the overall victory and the St. Mary’s Trophy.
The Brooklands Trophy was first run last year and is for cars of the type that raced at Brooklands prior to 1939. The Alfa Romeo Tipo B of Thomas Bscher and the Riley Dixon Special of Duncan Ricketts fought a close contest which was decided on the last lap when Ricketts got the better of Bscher lapping a gaggle of back markers, taking the win by 2.4 seconds. Unfortunately, pole-sitter Tom Dark failed to take the start, having encountered mechanical problems on the parade lap. The Freddie March Memorial Trophy event for cars in the spirit of the Goodwood Nine-Hour races of the period 1952–1955 was narrowly won by Michael Steel’s HWM Jaguar from Gary Pearson in the 1953 Le Mans-winning Jaguar C-type. The newly restored Lagonda V-12 Le Mans was a welcome addition to the grid and in the hands of Darren McWhirter to a fine 3rd place.
Production-based sports and GT cars from 1958–1963 raced for the Fordwater Trophy, with Chris Clarkson’s Austin Healey 3000 Mk1 taking victory from Rick Bourne’s Morgan Plus 4 after racing in close company throughout. Michael Schryver and his Lotus-Climax 18 were the class of the field in the Richmond and Gordon Trophies race for F1 and Inter-continental Formula cars raced between 1954–1961. Duncan Dayton and Joaquin Folch-Rusinol, both in Lotus 16s, kept up the chase until Dayton was forced to drop back to a distant 3rd after his engine went off-song.
Along with the St. Mary’s Trophy the star billing traditionally goes to the RAC Tourist Trophy Celebration race for 1960–1964 closed-cockpit GT cars. This is a one hour, two-driver event that everyone wants to win. Pole position was claimed by Gerhard Berger and Ludovic Lindsay in a Jaguar E-type lightweight low-drag coupe from Franchitti and Pirro, also in an E-type, but of more standard shape. Next up in qualifying were Bobby Rahal and Peter Hardman sharing a glorious-sounding Ferrari 330 LMB and Jochen Mass and Justin Law with a Lister-Jaguar Coupe. The entry was truly outstanding, both in terms of drivers and cars and some 14,000 bhp was unleashed when the flag fell. Of the front runners, unfortunately Jochen Mass was forced to retire the Lister-Jaguar but Franchitti/Pirro took a popular victory, just 2.2 seconds ahead of Berger/Lindsay after 60 minutes of frenetic action.
Sid Hoole ran out the victor of the Glover Trophy for 1961–1965 1.5-liter F1 and Tasman cars in his Cooper-Climax T66 after early-leader Thomas Bscher’s BRM 261 went off in a big way at St. Mary’s, fortunately without harm to the driver. Americans James King and Duncan Dayton were also in contention before retiring. Last on the program was the Sussex Trophy for 1955–1960 World Championship sports cars. This fell to Gary Pearson’s Lister-Jaguar “Knobbly”, closely followed by Peter Hardman’s Aston Martin DBR1 and Tony Dron’s Ferrari 246s Dino.
By Keith Booker
