ODDITIES CAPTURE THE IMAGINATION
On his first appearance at Goodwood in over a decade since his Red Bull testing days, a wide-eyed Neel Jani was captivated by the sheer scope of the event.
“It’s never-ending, you don’t know where to look and you’re scared to miss something,” said the Swiss, who took a particular liking to Jeremy Smith’s 1993 Penske PC22. “The history is not just on film or in a book, here you can touch it and you can realise it’s actually not that far away.”
That was true in the case of VW Motorsport, which was running the radical twin-engine 4WD Golf GTI that took Jochi Kleint to within three corners of the finish at Pikes Peak in
1987 before being robbed by a suspension ball joint failure. He and Hans-joachim Stuck got stuck into the driving duties; Stuck took on the mighty 1936 V16 Auto Union Type C.
Stefan Mucke drew plenty of admiring eyes in the Zakspeed Capri that Klaus Ludwig took to the 1981 DRM title, likewise 80-year-old Johnny Rutherford in the Chaparral 2K he used to win the ’80 Indianapolis 500. Jason Minshaw’s Volvo 850 estate was the pick of the bunch gathered to celebrate the British Touring Car Championship’s 60th anniversary, which also included original champion Jack Sears’s Austin A105.
The 1995 Le Mans-winning Mclaren F1 GTR made a rare public appearance with Ben Barnicoat driving, and Duncan Pittaway once again thrilled with his 28-litre 1911 ‘Beast of Turin’ land-speed record Fiat. But one car that didn’t run was perhaps even more intriguing – the 1986 Osella-alfa Romeo FA1G, which rarely hit the heights in period with Piercarlo Ghinzani and Alex Caffi, was halted by a leaky fuel tank.
Its owner, Federico Buratti, pledged to return next year.