For so many enthusiasts, it always takes a while to recover from each year’s Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard. This year is no exception. It’s like too rich a diet, but for the mind not the body. As one young supporter said to me “I just don’t know where to look next…”.
Doug Nye: Looking back at the 2019 Festival of Speed
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Yes, well, that was the idea in the first place. For me studying the detail of what the motorsport boys and girls had brought to Goodwood this year was a rich diet indeed.
I am an habitual photographer – I love my pocket-sized Canon G16 camera, and it goes everywhere with me. Here’s a brief selection of what I saw, and what it recorded… as always the secret of the Festival for hardcore enthusiasts lies not so much in the overall feature presentations but in the unexpected, arcane and often surprising detail…
Main image by Tom Shaxson.
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The generality, the wider view - the fabulous Porsche 917 line-up in their paddock shelter on drippy Sunday, the Collier/Revs Institute Porsche 917PA in the foreground, the Le Mans Museum’s 917 Langheck Coupe beyond.
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The startling detail. The weight-saving gear knob on the 1969 Porsche 917PA Spyder is actually in laminated balsa wood.
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The generality. Nigel Mansell’s 1992 World Championship-dominating Williams-Renault FW14B sold for £2.7-million in the Bonhams Auction.
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And why so much? Nigel’s folk-hero warrior status and this record of five Grand Prix victories from five pole position starts, celebrated by these fading stars inside chassis ‘8’s carbon-composite cockpit.
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Sir Jackie Stewart perched on the front wheel of his 1969 World Championship-winning Matra-Cosworth MS80. Jackie's sons, Paul and Mark, can be seen in overalls while photographers focus on the 80-year-old superstar changing his shoes.
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Sir Jackie’s gloves on the steering wheel of the MS80, the three-times World Champion’s favourite Formula 1 car. Spot the 1969 US GP scrutineering sticker on the interior tub hatch.
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The winged-wonder Lotus-Coswortth 49B from 1968-early ’69 with Stirling Moss’s Monaco GP-winning Rob Walker Lotus-Climax 18 ahead, Ferrari and Williams beyond.
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“So where do we go now then?” 1970 Le Mans winner Richard Attwood with JYS.
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Another Le Mans winner - 2009 - David Brabham, thrilled to be driving one of his late triple-World Champion father’s 1966-67 works Brabham-Repco BT20s. The ex-Courage Frank Williams team De Tomaso-Cosworth beyond.
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Red tide. The Michael Schumacher Ferrari tribute line-up was Goodwood’s finest-ever display by the Maranello marque.
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The Classic Team Lotus lads with the ever-enthusiastic Nick Fennell and the magnificent 1966-67 Indy Lotus-Ford 38 they have restored for him.
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See the apparent dent above left of the Enco sticker? That was the give-away which enabled Classic Team Lotus and Nick Fennell to identify their individual Lotus-Ford 38 chassis, as originally photographed in 1966-67.
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Different strokes for different folks. Down in the Brooklands Paddock, this fabulous, mouth-watering line-up of hand-crafted Bugattis, 3.3-litre Type 59 in the foreground.
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Fine craftsmanship. Bugattis famous 'piano-wire' wheels on the Type 59s have near integral brake drums toothed into the rim.
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Giannino Marzotti’s wondrous Ferrari 212 Coupe for the 1950 Mille Miglia featured this barrel-form coachwork, designed by ex-aeronautical engineer Franco Reggiani and formed by Carrozzeria Fontana of Padua.
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Interior roof structure of the Marzotto Coupe is utterly reminiscent of wartime Reggiane aircraft structure...
Doug Nye began writing about racing cars at ‘Motor Racing’ magazine in 1963-64. Today he is a multiple award-winning motor sports journalist and author of over 50 years’ experience, with some 70 books to his name. He is Goodwood Motorsport’s founding Historian and consultant and fulfils similar roles for Bonhams Auctioneers and the Collier Collection/Revs Institute in Naples, FL, USA. He is a member of the National Motor Museum Advisory Council at Beaulieu, Hants, and is a regular columnist for ‘Motor Sport’ magazine, while contributing to many other specialist periodicals worldwide.
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