I’d never raced at Goodwood because, before that very day, no one had for over 32 years. When the track shut its gates in 1966 I’d not yet reached my first birthday.
Did we really do a Le Mans start? It seems we did. I’d read all about them and the tricks the drivers used to pull, like rotating the ignition key barrel so ‘on’ looked like ‘off’ and removing the little telltale bulb. Or starter motors that engaged as the door closed. I settled for just leaving the car in gear.
Ah yes, the car. Well I have Frank Sytner to thank for that. To thank for it all, really. He just rang up and said he always wanted to read a story about what it was like to drive to Goodwood in your racing car and then race, in the way that people had back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. So keen was he to read this story that he wondered if I might want to write it, if he put the means at my disposal. By which he meant his ex-Dickie Stoop Frazer-Nash Sebring, one of only three such cars ever built and a three-time veteran of Le Mans.
So I pootled down the A3 from London and then through Milford, Chiddingfold and Petworth, stopping for a pint outside a pub because, well, you would, and loving the performance and handling of this gorgeous car with its 2-litre twin-cam, straight six motor.