Festival of Speed 2014

Once again, I was lucky enough to be invited to the Festival of Speed at Goodwood, and on this occasion I was joined by two Peters; one being my primary guest, and the second a good friend of the first whom the first Peter was inviting as a thank you for a spell on his boat in Antigua. The unexpected bonus from these arrangements was an invitation to the Gurney Pavilion courtesy of Ferrari who provided us with excellent hospitality, food and drinks during the day.

We had set off from Birdham and encountered heavy traffic on our journey into the venue, and misdirected by some miscreant switching the colour coding at one of the main roundabouts which resulted in our having to drive through one of the Public Car Parks to reach Gate 4, and our designated parking.

We visited the Super Car area first before heading for the Gurney Pavilion where we collected our extra passes and some programmes. The seating at the front of the Ferrari area proved to be an ideal viewing position for the right hander before the straight in front of the House, especially as it was sufficiently elevated to be clear of the straw bales at the trackside. It also provided a fairly clear view to the wider area before the bridge where many stunts were to be performed such as burn-outs, doughnuts and bike tricks.

Once again Lord March had excelled himself with the installation in front of the House; on this occasion the support structure curved over the roof of the house itself, to support two silver Mercedes from past and present eras. Despite forecasts of a high likelihood of showers we were blessed with warmth and much sunshine throughout the day.

I just love to capture the detailing of the vehicles on show and marvel at the curves that the designers achieve for both the production and concept cars that were on show, and I hope this comes across in the shots that I have taken and that appear in the galleries from this year’s event. Equally, I am amused by the ludicrous ornamentation that can be seen on American cars from a bygone era. The quality of the engineering to be found all around the Festival is awe-inspiring, and proves to be a wonderful hunting ground for photography.

The atmosphere at both the annual motoring events I have been lucky enough to attend over several years is the epitome of friendliness. On the Peugeot stand I was keen to take photos of the concept car, and the Designer himself, Dominique Larcher invited me within the barriers so that I might get better shots of the details of the car, and also his PA kindly took hold of my camera with its long lens, because he was concerned it might brush against his creation, which made my task far easier. I hope I did justice to his creation in the subsequent photos.

I cannot thank Lord March for the invitation and Leslie Walsh of Ferrari enough for the wonderful hospitality he gave us in the Gurney Pavilion, and the wonderful company I enjoyed ‘avec les deux Pierres’.

The headline text links to just one gallery – Cars on Track, but all can be found in this list:

The Installation
Cars on Track
Bikes on Track
Statics
Bike Stunts
Aston Martin Concept
Maserati Concept
Peugeot Concept
The Aircraft