Inside Goodwood
The wonderful world of the Members’ Meeting
SUNDAY OF THE 76th Goodwood Members’ Meeting and Chris Goodwin is pondering the suspension set-up of his Lotus 23B. In a few hours’ time he’ll race in the Gurney Cup, but for now the flimsy rear bodywork is propped open to reveal the 1600cc Lotus Cortina twin-cam engine. He’s talking me round the rear suspension with its tiny dampers and springs and slender anti-roll bar. ‘ That’s all there is,’ he laughs. ‘All I can do is play around with those three things and try to go faster.’ The wind’s so cold that my fingers are mottled pink and white, and grapple torpidly with pen and paper, the track’s damp after snow the night before, and gut feel says Goodwin should soften off the suspension, to give it more compliance so that the tyres can bite into the greasy surface. Goodwin disagrees. ‘Maybe if it was wet and warmer I’d go softer,’ he smiles, ‘but I need to get heat into the tyres, and that means a firmer set-up.’
I don’t argue. Not only is the 51-year-old an expert race driver who’s previously won the Gurney Cup, he’s best known as McLaren’s ‘chief test driver’, a key cog in the machine responsible for McLaren Automotive’s rise from patchy MP4-12C to sublime 675LT and 720S. He seemed like a McLaren lifer. Then in December last year, Goodwin walked away from 20 years at Woking, taking on a new challenge at Aston Martin and the far superior job title of ‘expert high-performance test driver’. Some say he left because of a clash with CRS Racing; Goodwin has an interest in the race outfit, which prepares McLaren GT3 cars, but McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt wants to take that business in-house. Goodwin is too diplomatic to say as much.
He’s busy. This week he’s been at Portimao, testing on the back of the Vantage launch (p102), at Paul Ricard in GT3 machinery, and in the simulator at Red Bull. Most of us would be exhausted, but Goodwin is relaxing with a weekend’s racing on one of the country’s most demanding circuits. His dad’s here, so too his wife, and post-race they’re all eager to get to the pub. Not before Goodwin’s left his mark on this fantastic event, though.
If you’ve been to the Festival of Speed or the Revival, the Members’ Meeting will feel quiet. This is intentional. ‘When we re-opened the circuit in 1998 after it closed in 1966, we got five days’ planning permission to run events,’ recalls the Duke of Richmond, the aristocrat formerly known as Lord March, and owner of the Goodwood estate. ‘ The Revival accounted for three days, so we wondered what to do with the other two. We looked at motorbikes, but the Members’ Meetings were real grass-roots events at Goodwood. There were seven or eight a year in the early days, and there’d been 70 or 71 of them before the closure. They’re an important part of our history, so we wanted to recreate that feel with an event that opened the season and gave something back to our members.’ 4
Only members can buy tickets, which means paying at least £39 to join the Goodwood Road and Racing Club Fellowship. A weekend ticket is then at least a further £120. There’s no dress code (unlike the Revival), less fluff in terms of presentation (though the Main Hall eaterie has a Hogwarts vibe and St Trinian-types singing), and around 20,000 visitors compared with the 160,000 who show up for each day of the Revival. The Revival’s insistence on originality is also relaxed. ‘Would you allow the new “continuation” cars from Aston and Jag to come along?’ I ask. ‘Good question,’ ponders the Duke.
The low-key atmosphere puts the spotlight firmly on the metal. Some of the invited cars do overlap with the Revival, so you’re still treated to waist-high Ford GT40s, to the warm burble of Aston DB4 GTs throttle-blipping past you in the paddock, to skinny-tyred Bugatti Type 35s with pirate-ship steering wheels, and there’s still top-class racing courtesy of motorsport royalty. You want Emanuele Pirro revving the nuts off the ex-Count Volpi Ferrari 250GT SWB ‘ Breadvan’? World Touring Car champ Rob Huff drifting an E-Type and going faster than anyone else? We saw all that at the 76th Members’ Meeting.
‘It’s a pensioners’ day out,’ jokes BTCC legend Patrick Watts, now 61, after he’s punted off the track in the Gerry Marshall Trophy. ‘But if rock stars can keep on touring, why shouldn’t we keep on racing? We’re no slower than we were!’
Wander the paddock and you’ll find more modern cars too, many of them high-performance Ford Fiestas, Escorts and Capris, but BMWs, Rovers and Porsches, too – indeed, Watts is driving a Capri. For a Generation X-er like me, there’s more of an emotional pull to those formative years.
Cars invited to the Revival competed during the circuit’s first era, from 1948 to 1966; the track is fast and unforgiving, and never was upgraded to the safety standards required for quicker machinery. The Members’ Meeting gets more free rein, but those safety concerns still throttle it back. Cars like the Porsche 935 ‘Moby Dick’ run in high-speed demonstrations with a handful of period rivals. Later on Sunday we watch as Jochen Mass squeezes out past the rollcage and hands over to stick-thin Dan Harper, the latest Porsche Carrera Cup GB scholar. It’s the driver-change as generational baton-pass, and we eavesdrop as the old master carefully details where to take it easy before the young hotshoe heads onto the circuit in a rush of flat-six turbo chatter. ‘Huge credit to those who raced these cars in that era,’ Harper says later. ‘I didn’t realise how challenging they’d be.’
Formula 5000 racers are allowed on the circuit with similar ‘demonstration run’ caveats. These single-seaters combine backof-a-fag-packet aerodynamics with – usually – thumping great Chevy V8s with over 500bhp. They honour commentator Henry Hope-Frost, killed in a road accident in March, with a minute of noise, and they make such a thunderous, visceral racket that your instinct is to run away, far from Goodwood, not climb into the driver’s seat, buckle up and head out. We watch the demo runs in actual snow on Saturday, wincing as one slithers over the snow-flecked grass and punches the tyre wall.
Other post-1966 cars race for real. The distinction, explains motorsport director Lloyd McNeil, comes down to lap times – contain the times and the MSA will let newer cars race. This includes the brilliantly eclectic Group 1 category, which closely resembles production-car specification. Competitors include a Datapost Austin Metro, plus Rover SD1s, Camaros, Capris and Mk2 Escorts. Back in the day they’d have been on slicks for 4
dry races, but here they’re on treaded rubber, whatever the weather. They can lap in the high 1min 20s. The Group 1 Gerry Marshall Trophy signs off Saturday. They race into the dark, and we watch from above the pits, teeth chattering as the rasp of four-cylinder Mk2 Escorts mixes with the rumble of Rover V8s and the roar of V6 Capris. But it’s Mark Blundell and businessman Kerry Michael (see panel, left) who take the win, chased all the way by Mike Jordan – father of BTCC ace Andrew – in a gorgeous 3.0S Capri, the pair balancing right on the limit of grip to deliver a thrilling finale. ‘Life in the old dog yet!’ says Blundell as he energetically bounces around parc ferme.
As we leave, I text Goodwin and ask where to meet tomorrow. He could’ve just said ‘12.30pm, paddock’, but he adds that ‘it was freezing today and I qualified mid-grid. Ahead of all the other 1600s but in amongst the big V8s… a lot of fun!’ Even without an emoji, the buzz is palpable.
The next morning the Duke of Richmond anxiously eyes the circuit, which was earlier specially treated to clear the snow. ‘It
was so cold last night we even had our own gritters out on the public roads at 4am,’ he grimaces. ‘But people are coming from all over, it’s incredible – I met one bloke from Adelaide who remembers snow at the April 1965 meeting!’
As temperatures hit 0.5°C, snow flurries return and the opentopped ’20s and ’30s sports cars of the Caracciola Sportwagen-rennen head out to the track. One commentator notes that ‘it’s warming up a bit’, which makes us feel immensely patriotic, but the show can’t carry on entirely regardless: all motorbike races have been cancelled, and their owners reluctantly pack up.
At the appointed 12.30pm I hook up with Goodwin, who talks me round his Lotus 23B. Conceived for Group 4 competition in the ’60s, the 23B was built around a spaceframe chassis and fibreglass body that makes the GT40s he’ll compete against look like leviathans. This car was ‘a bag of scrap’ when Goodwin bought it but he’s worked at it with his dad, and now it’s restored back to the specification in which it raced in Swiss hillclimbs, right down to the cream with twin red stripes livery and the ‘ T22222’ serial code by the headlights. ‘I wanted it to be as authentic as possible, so I could feel what life was like in that era, not an improved version of it.’ The 23B makes 180bhp but weighs around 450kg and yesterday in qualifying Goodwin couldn’t use full power in fifth, so tricky was the grip. His best lap of 1:54.44 around the 2.4-mile circuit will tumble if the snow holds off. Goodwin also owns a McLaren M6 Can-Am car, a Formula Junior, and even gets kicks in Rotax-powered go-karts, and he insists it’s all relevant to the day job. He’s been brought in to Aston Martin to develop its first ever mid-engined cars, overlapping with ex-Lotus man Matt Becker ‘like a Venn diagram’.
First comes the Valkyrie hypercar, designed by F1 brainiac Adrian Newey. Later comes a Ferrari 488 rival, plus a second 4
IN QUALIFYING, GOODWIN CAN’T USE FULL POWER IN FIFTH GEAR, SO TRICKY IS THE GRIP
GOODWIN SCORCHES INTO VIEW AND RUNS nd THE CHICANE WALL SO CLOSE THE DAFFODILS FLINCH
hypercar to sit below Valkyrie and pick up where the McLaren P1 and LaFerrari left off.
‘I’m a big believer in basic principles,’ says Goodwin, ‘and a car as pure as the Lotus reminds you what you’re ultimately trying to achieve. I was racing my Can-Am car, jumping out of that feeling more alive than ever, then tuning the McLaren P1. Now I’m playing around with the Lotus’s anti-roll bars while also working on active aero and active ride control on the Valkyrie. There are some engineers developing cars and they’re the best cars they’ve ever driven; they don’t have the benchmarks.’
Two hours later, Goodwin takes up his 12th slot on the grid. With a wave of the flag the cars roar off the line and jostle into Madgwick Corner before disappearing out of sight. We stand by the chicane, framed by what looks like a brick wall but is actually polystyrene blocks – though the potted daffodils on top are incentive enough not to crash into it. Goodwin scorches into view chasing a blue Ford GT40 on his first lap, with a Shelby Cobra closing fast. He runs the wall so close I swear the daffodils flinch. Earlier, Goodwin had said that it’s this last sector that he really relishes. ‘Most people over-slow for that, so I can make up some places through there.’
A couple of laps later and the much more powerful Shelby is through, but it’s an action-packed race, and I get so caught up watching another Lotus 23B get increasingly lurid through that chicane – and gasping as another car spins and stalls just off the racing line – that I lose track of where Goodwin is.
The race finishes, and we dash back to the paddock to catch up. He’s still flushed with excitement when we arrive and says he gained five places to finish seventh and rank as the fastest of the four-cylinder cars. He’s ahead of some GT40s and McLarens too, and his best lap of 1:26.958 is only 1.8sec off the fastest time set by the far more powerful Shelby Cobra. ‘I got a good start, but the grip was very low and there was a fair bit of oil, so I had some big moments in fourth gear and had to make some big catches.’ What, I ask, does Aston boss Andy Palmer make of his new signing racing other marques? ‘He’s cool with it,’ says Goodwin, who hopes to do something more on-brand soon. ‘I’d love to race an Aston DB4 GT while I’m developing the Valkyrie,’ he says. ‘I have to find a way to do that.’ Then a German gentleman approaches. He runs a race series and invites Goodwin to bring his Lotus to the Norisring. ‘Sounds like fun, and I’ve never been,’ says Goodwin. ‘Why not?’
With that, he packs up and heads to the pub with his family. It’s hard not to be impressed by his ‘live it, breathe it’ attitude. After all, if Goodwin puts the same enthusiasm into his 9-to-5, those mid-engined Astons are in safe hands.
Goodwood Festival of Speed: July 12-15. Goodwood Revival: September 7- 9. For both, see ticketing.goodwood.com