Report from Goodwood

Hello, from the UK!

I haven't really posted at all since leaving, but I wanted to wait until I really had something worthwhile to share with you all. You can put my name down as another VCMC member who has made the pilgrimage to motorsports heaven, the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

What Joe wrote back in 2003 very much applies in 2008, and from what I hear the festival is bigger than ever. There is just so much going on at this event. Of course, the core of it is the hillclimb which is a fantastic exhibition of anything that has ever raced on rubber tires. In addition to that, you have auto manufacturers, most of them having erected two-storey buildings just for this 3-day event to make up a car show that is bigger and better than Vancouvers annual auto show.

Up the hill, there is a dirt track where you can take a ride in a Paris-Dakar truck, and then up to the forest rally stage where everything from the first to the most recent rally cars take on the narrow dirt road.

By far, the most poignant moment of the weekend was riding down the hill on a cart towed by a tractor. This was part of a shuttle service between the forest and lower areas, which goes along a path right in between the forest rally stage and the finish line of the hill climb. On my left, about 100ft away WRC points leader Mikko Hirvonen powerslides his way through the trees. On my right, Lewis Hamilton screams past the finish in his McLaren F1 car. This was so mind-blowing!

When people ask me how I liked Goodwood, I say that if anyone likes motorsports even a little bit, they must go!

My Goodwood photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/arthurmc...ey=24Dp-Ncwp4A

Flickr FoS photo pool: http://www.flickr.com/groups/goodwood_fos/pool/

Our blog: http://europeanadventure2008.wordpress.com/

Art.

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Silver '91 BMW 318is - 06/07 G-stock (retired and sold)
"On a break" from autocross