Good taste, good racing, good fun

PETER BLEAKNEY FOR THE TORONTO STAR

A ’52 Porsche 356 Glockler Special vrooms onto the estate driveway of Lord March for the annual hillclimb and show, a jaw-dropping gathering of racers.

Peter Bleakney

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

West Sussex, U.K–Lord March sure knows how to throw a party.

This is the 17th year his lordship has opened up the grounds of the sprawling Goodwood estate to a jaw-dropping array of historic and contemporary race cars.

Think of the three-day Goodwood Festival of Speed as the ultimate motor museum featuring countless multimillion-dollar cars – except it's outdoors, the cars are driven hard (up a 1.86-km stretch of ascending tarmac with nine turns that form the estate's driveway) and, as you mill about the paddock getting up close with these gems, you could very well bump into the likes of Damon Hill, Stirling Moss, Al Unser Sr. or Jackie Ickx suiting up for a blast up that hill.

Yes, the festival is as much about the people as the cars.

This year the featured marque was Audi, which is celebrating its 100th year. As such, there was an impressive assemblage of rally, touring and Le Mans racers, but the real stars here were the priceless prewar Auto Union grand prix cars (Audi, Horch, Wanderer and DKW represented by the four rings). These mid-engined V16 and V12-powered Auto Unions did battle with the Mercedes-Benz front-engined cars – also very well represented here.

The fierce and well-financed rivalry between Mercedes and Auto Union spawned a progression of beautiful and spectacularly sophisticated machinery known as the Silver Arrows. And 75 years on, here at Goodwood they were at it again.

Let me tell you, these suckers are loud. I was mere centimetres away from the tailpipe of a 1934 Mercedes-Benz W35 supercharged straight-eight when the mechanic fired it up. It was like a bomb went off. I think I lost a couple of years on that one.

At the top of the hillclimb, a rally stage has been carved out of the lush forest. Here, the stars were flinging about everything from vintage Minis to legendary Group B cars at silly velocities.

The legendary rally/race driver Walter Rohrl was reunited with the 1987 Audi Sport Quattro S1 in which he broke the 11-minute barrier at the U.S. Pikes Peak Rally – a record that stood for 10 years. He noted, "I haven't driven it for 22 years. With 600 horsepower, it still feels very fast."

Jesse James of West Coast Chopper fame wowed the crowd with his 900 hp Baja Trophy Truck, driving sideways and taking out a few hay bales just for good measure. "If I drove like this anywhere else, I'd get in trouble. Here, they love it!"

Peter Fonda rode a re-creation of the Captain America chopper from the film Easy Rider. Jay Leno piloted the one and only 1965 12-cylinder Jaguar XJ13. Jenson Button, who is currently leading the F1 circus, flew up the hill in a supercharged 1938 Mercedes-Benz W154 to screams from the patriotic throngs.

The road-going supercar paddock had such rare exotics as a Bugatti Veyron Pur Sang, Pagini Zonda R, Ruf CTR3, Spyker C8 Aileron, Koenigsegg CCX-R and Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss – all could be seen tearing up the hill at full chat.

Both Morgan and Bugatti were marking a century, and in honour of the Mini's 50th, there were 50 of the critters on hand, including Peter Sellers's '63 custom and a psychedelic '65 Cooper S owned by George Harrison.

With about 150,000 visitors over the weekend, Goodwood is a pretty crowded affair, but what impresses most is the infectious enthusiasm and sense of goodwill that prevails – from both observers and participants.

Stirling Moss put the whole thing into perspective following a run up the hill in a 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 Grand Prix car:

"Goodwood is fantastic. There's nothing like it in America. Nothing like it in the rest of the world. It's because we're British."

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