Tom's Travels: Goodwood Festival of Speed

11 - 16 July 2013

Day 1: Not much
Today was a planning day but as my cousin was going to the gym, I decided to join him. We couldn't play the "free pass for my friend" card so I had to pay 10 pound (or a tenner in local speak) for a single pass, ouch! After we decided to offset all the good that was done and have dinner at the local pub; piri piri chicken :D

Day 2: Get the van
I went into London and picked up my camper van. The drive back out of central London wasn't anywhere near as bad as what I expected because traffic flowed pretty well. The streets are all super tight though so there were a few scary moments of squeezing between traffic and parked cars but it all went smoothly.

The drive down to Goodwood was pretty nice thanks to the highways everywhere. The weather was great and all I had to do was follow the GPS. When I got into Goodwood I had to find somewhere to park the van and there really wasn't much choice because all the roads are bordered on both sides by big bushes and there's just farms behind them. After a bit of looking I found a national park, where I stopped to cook dinner. I was thinking of staying there but I was worried I'd get locked in or raped and killed so I headed back toward the track to find somewhere else. I was really lucky because I got the last spot on a grassy oval that the local pub turned into a campsite. The other bonus was I could walk to the track from here.

Day 3: Festival of Speed
The weather was a fantastic 32 degrees, which is much better than some previous years where apparently the festival got rained out. I really hadn't done much homework on how the festival worked but it turns out that they have the plan of what they'll do and they do it once in the morning and again in the afternoon and then the same deal each day. If I had've known this then I'd've (yes, I'm using that) probably only gone for one day but because I had a lazy start on both days I could be more casual and get a chance to see everything over two days.

The first thing I saw was the motorbike and Formula 1 display where they take bikes of all ages and F1 cars from the previous few years for a blast up the track, which is actually the driveway of Goodwood House. I walked all around the hill climb track and the rally track to get a feel for the size of the place; it's huge! During the course of the day I saw all sorts:

A Nascar
Vulcan delta wing, which is an old plane but still looks super modern. Apparently it's the only working (flying) one left in the world.
A drag bike named "Pure Hell"
A Jaguar XJ220 powered Ford Transit van. The only thing that betrayed it were the XJ220 wheels but otherwise it looked like a tradie van.
Volkswagon's electric prototype car
Various rally cars tearing around the dirt circuit at the top of the hill
Motocross and ATV ride experiences by Honda
Range Rover Evoque rides where they take you for a blast around a short dirt course
Porsche Cayanne rides where they basically do one huge, sustained drift around a muddy paddock. It's good to see a soft-roader getting dirty
A fireworks display... during the day (WTF)
Lots of motorbikes
Formula 1 cars
The GAS (Goodwood Action Sports) show with Freestyle Motocross, BMX and trials bikes (both pushies and motorbikes)

It was a great day of watching so many different things from so many different eras and despite being cooked by the sun and covered in dirt, I was feeling pretty great. All that was left was a walk back along the narrow, footpathless road to the campsite/pub, a freezing cold outdoor shower and dinner.

Day 4: More FOS
Now I knew that today would be roughly the same as yesterday, I decided cancel the next night of the campsite, pack up the camper and drive to the Festival so I could head off elsewhere after. It was sort of a dumb move because I think I had to walk further from the carpark than I did from the pub.

I spent the day seeing the things I missed the previous day and watched the whole midday GAS show again; geez I can't wait to get back on my motocross bike :D Something unique to the Sunday was a fighter jet fly over, which is always good fun.

Stonehenge
I left the Festival around lunch and headed off towards Stonehenge. You get a pretty decent view of the site as you drive past on the highway so when I got round to the car park and saw the size of the line at the entrance and the fact it cost 8 pound, I decided to follow some of the other cheapos (and sheep that live there) and walk round the corner and have a look through the fence. It wasn't spectacular but I am interested in the history of it so at least I've seen it with my own eyes now and that might help when I read about it.

Home or camp
I started heading back toward London but with the intention of finding somewhere to stop and camp. It was a total failure because I couldn't find anywhere to stay. I detoured off the A-road a few times to have a poke around and had a look in some car parks but there weren't any spaces to get off the roads and the car parks all had 2hr time limits so I just kept heading back "home" to drop the van off.

Day 5: Planning day
Just more planning and spacing out on the couch watching House MD.

Day 6: Flying to Greece
I had an overnight flight coming and knew I needed to have a nap but it just didn't happen; there was planning and blogging to be done and it was hot and still daylight. The flight was pretty good, I spent the whole time chatting to the two girls next to me and they served a really good red Thai curry for dinner.