Festival of Speed 2018

 

 

 

I always really look forward to visits to Goodwood, and this year’s Festival of Speed was no exception, but it was tinged with a certain amount of concern for my guest on this occasion, my younger daughter Lizzy, as she was not too well, suffering stomach problems. I tried to balance my compassion for her not being well, with my longing for company for both the event and the journey to and from Bedford, and the long day’s travelling, and for her added trip back to her Ayesbury home after returning to her car parked at my place. Selflessly and hopefully, truthfully she assured me it was just fine.

The larger part of the outward trip was reasonably clear, but the very last section as we neared Goodwood, the traffic, now all headed for the same destination was a slow crawl, with only unaccompanied motorcyclists able to travel smoothly. However, I can report that every one of those around me accepted the situation with good nature and maintained adequate spaces between each other, and even held back at junctions for others to join the queue.

We arrived naturally later than hoped, but calmly gathered what we needed from the car and walked through the cool woods till we arrived by the house, and concours d’elegance cars displayed on the lawn. A visit to the house was our first port of call for relief and then to view the Porsche installation, and take a few photos before heading for the enclosure by the track to watch some of the cars heading up the hill, and sit down with a programme to decide where to visit. Mindful of Lizzy we stayed here a while before heading up the hill and to the Rally section in the woods, where my camera geared received a less than welcome coating of very dry chalk dust! I did get a few shots of those cars in the trees, but we soon made our way back towards the house, to spend time watching, shooting and chatting with a friendly couple we met from Staffordshire.

I also chatted to a photographer who was waiting to capture shots for Lexus. We shared an amusing cameo when we were both shooting the rotating actions of the drifting cars in the track by the House — I showed him a shot I had captured of one particular car, amidst the tyre-smoke, and he flourished his review screen with an identical image (probably taken at identical moments in time to within a thousandth of a second!) we shared identical smiles of pride!

Lizzy and our new friend from Staffordshire also shared shots, on their phones of a celebrity, Tom Hardy at an adjoining table, who for a short spell was swamped by others all hoping for photo opportunities, but the group moved on to probably find less attention.

I once asked my elder daughter whom I had taken along to a much earlier FoS, to give Lizzy a description of this event and she gave her a description, which is forever indelibly written in my consciousness — “Ascot with Cars” — I simply cannot beat that! The atmosphere at these two established annual events at Goodwood; the Festival of Speed, and the Revival Meeting, stand out as some of the most friendly and relaxed events in the British calendar of events related to motorsport.

Whilst mentioning established events, a very prominent feature of the Festival of Speed is the Art Installation in the front of the House. Since 1997, the works of Artist Gerry Judah have been the focal point of these events, as he produces tremendous creations which are also an advertisement of great British engineering by local welders, Littlehampton Welding and naturally numerous others who contribute to these structures each year since.

I have been lucky enough to be invited over several years, and it has always been a delight to receive these invitations and then live in anticipation for a couple of months till the day of the event arrives. It has now become an equally anticipated event for my family, and those days never disappoint.

The gallery of images from this year’s event, I hope gives a smidgeon of the atmosphere we enjoyed and represents a day we cherish. It is also both an ongoing library of my photographs, and often a way of testing myself, as in a few sequences of cars exiting the darkness of the woods after the Flint Wall into a short stretch of bright sunshine prior to a plunge into the last section of woods before the top. Anticipation is key, but also control, and it is easy to get ahead of oneself when panning from the darkness into the light, there is no glimpse before the cars exit the gloom.

Goodwood Festival of Speed – Saturday Sunshine and Showers

I am farther up the M1 now than hitherto, so the journey to Chichester for the Good Festival of Speed this year means a very early start if I am to arrive early enough to take a wander amongst some of the Super Cars before climbing the hill to reach the Forest Section and to watch the cars navigate the Rally circuit, so I had set the alarm for four-thirty before heading for bed on Friday night. I had also showered and shaved beforehand so that I could allow just half-an-hour to be ready from bed to car fully-packed. Unlike many of these trips I knew I faced inclement weather, so packing was more comprehensive with a complete change of clothing and a towel in case I was so soaked as to need a complete change before getting back in the car for the journey back.

I had company for my day this year, my son-in-law Tim who lives near Aylesbury, so my trip to him was familiar but from Westcott to the M25 was not. I made good time to reach him, but Lizzy and Tim had not had the best of nights with their two children and they had been up since five, so he had had a short night and was still in the shower upon my arrival, so I settled down with my second cup of tea of the day to wait patiently. It was not long before we were on our way and having company means the journey never seems so long. We made good time till we reached Midhurst, but as we neared Goodwood the journey slowed to a crawl, which we eventually learned was due to an accident, which also meant we had to be diverted through one car park to reach our designated one, so the day’s programme was well under way by the time we arrived near the House where we met further congestion due to Guests trying to get Courtesy vehicles along some of the pedestrian routes.

Our plans changed from a visit to the Super Car Paddock to heading straight to the Forest section, as we wanted to get up the hill as soon as possible, it proved to be a good move as we got to see some rally action before the rain slowed that up, and it also meant the trees saved us from at least some of the rain! Our journey down had been without rain, but our day would be a mixture of sunshine and showers, and the climb up the hill was sticky due to the heat and humidity. The track has changed over time and so we found we needed the programme’s map, but the print was very fine so we explored rather than navigated!

Most of the visitors to this area now seem to be those with cameras, so first choice was always a compromise as we waited for the earlier arrivals to get their fill of actions before we could use the best standpoints, then we would move on, and so the routine would continue as each group moved on to the next area. Naturally, the moving slowed when one arrived at the jump, however the rain did limit the level of action, because it became difficult to navigate some of the corners at all due to the treacherous conditions once the rain set in.

I had made a conscious decision to attempt the photography almost exclusively with primes rather than zooms, so had researched past metadata in Lightroom from previous visits to Goodwood. I took note of what distance I had focussed upon when using my 70-200mm on my 7D MkII and whether or not I had cropped the images. I concluded that I could operate very satisfactorily using my 5D MkIII with my 85mm f/1.4 when shooting in the Forest Rally section. I knew from past experience I would need a very wide lens for the installation at the front of Goodwood House, but had not reckoned on just how wide and high this year’s feature would turn out to be! Even my 12-24 was too long!

However my 85mm and 100mm Macro proved to be absolutely correct for the areas where I had expected to use them, so being able to access the metadata from my use of zooms in the past was excellent to decide which primes would be ideal, and now I can further hone this knowledge when I look at what cropping was necessary when my choice was too short. Certainly the margin of quality meant on this occasion I didn’t really suffer due to my choice of specific primes. It also meant Tim had a choice too, so I hope he got shots he was pleased with the lenses I brought along. Neither of my two long lenses ever came out of the car – as the Red Arrows flew over and then presumably went on to their next venue as our cloud cover was both almost complete and had a very low ceiling!

Tim and I really enjoyed the day, and I really enjoyed having company on the journey down and back, it makes such a difference. Our journey back was uneventful and remarkably clear, traffic-wise.