General FoS 2017 Thoughts/Reviews Thread

[BricktopST205]

ecsrobin said:

I heard someone talking about it being an F1 when I walked past. I was absolutely shocked they even considered it was the real deal!

Interestingly there was an original on the McLaren stand (XP5) and F1 Joy in the Cartier lawn and on my drive home through East Lavant towards West Broyle I passed another Blue F1 parked up with the door open in a lay-by.

I only gave it a brief look as I already took plenty of pictures of the other one. It just didn't occur to me that repro's would be aloud into a event like FOS?

[milfordkong]

BricktopST205 said:

I only gave it a brief look as I already took plenty of pictures of the other one. It just didn't occur to me that repro's would be aloud into a event like FOS?

They wouldn't allow it on the track or on show anywhere officially within the event that's for sure, but it was a commercial stand so I doubt they'd have any problem taking those £'s...

Chap working on the stand told us it had cost the creator of said F1 replica £250k and his marriage to build! ...

[pozi]

ecsrobin said:

BricktopST205 said:

My second visit and it seemed like a lot less than last year even though the weather was perfect. Less drift cars, no time attack cars, no rallycross, non existent btcc bar a couple plus the absence of the funny car and Mazda 787. A lot more static stuff with the Ferrari's but you can go to the haynes motor museum for that.

there was a whole class for rallycross? James Grint in his modern car, and Pat Doran in his RS200 to name a couple off the top of my head.

To fill in the others, the Porsche 911 won the first ever Rallycross event 50 years ago, plus there was Will Gollops 6R4 BiTurbo and a Renault Alpine. There were also three drift cars and various touring cars in Batch 2 labelled "Touring cars, NASCAR, Rally and Drift" .

Drag car was Rat Trap, slightly old school but 3000hp and lots of burn outs up the hill means it looked the part, and the Jaguar XJR12D representing Group C won the shootout.

I am not having a dig because it sounds like you caught the rally stages which I barely made it up to, if anything that was the biggest problem because once there it felt like the FOS hill climb was not on and I had accidentally wandered into a separate event.

[JLC25]

First time I've been. Left at 5:40am as we had a BMW M2 for the weekend, so it would be rude not to drive it through every tunnel in Surrey before we got to Goodwood. Left before the actual timed Hill Climbs started as we'd seen everything and wanted to drive back through every tunnel in Surrey.

We were lucky enough to not have to pay for the Sunday - maybe that will change my opinion but my only real criticisms -

Food. Very very expensive, and all very samey. It would be great to get some real street food vendors in and offer a variety - but I'll assume that they wouldn't have the money to get in.

Parking attendant broke up our convoy as we were driving in - sent the 2 cars ahead of us off to a different car park. Not sure why?


Aside from those 2 minor points, a great day and a Yellow NSX in the car park so all bases covered for me!

[andye30m3]

I hadn't intended on heading to the FOS but a friend managed to get some tickets so we headed down on Saturday.

Got there just before 7 and left around 4 so no problems getting in or out at all.

We were very fortunate to get into the lower paddock which was great as you could wander around quite freely and even managed to chat to a couple of the drivers, all of the bikes sat waiting to go up the hill made a pretty impressive noise.

Felt like the number of cars in each group was bigger than previous year I'd been, which has got to be a good thing. Odd random thing going up the hill which I didn't really seam the point in, maybe a little to much manufacturer influence.

we wandered up through the manufactures area which I still don't see a great deal of point in as theres an industrial estate near enough to my house, I'd rather they scaled this aspect down a bit, I seam to remember the first year I went which must been at least 10 years ago there was my smaller companies doing interesting conversions etc.

I do also think they've over done the corporate thing a bit, I have managed to get invited to one of the corporate areas before and whilst its handy to have a base to go back to every couple of hours it does feel like the space could be better used to give everyone a bit better access to the action.

And as others have said the food prices in my opinion are getting pretty daft, Not so bad when your on your own but to gab a burger and chips for a family of 4 would have been coming to almost £60. The one I had wasn't anything special.

[BricktopST205]

pozi said:

To fill in the others, the Porsche 911 won the first ever Rallycross event 50 years ago, plus there was Will Gollops 6R4 BiTurbo and a Renault Alpine. There were also three drift cars and various touring cars in Batch 2 labelled "Touring cars, NASCAR, Rally and Drift" .

Drag car was Rat Trap, slightly old school but 3000hp and lots of burn outs up the hill means it looked the part, and the Jaguar XJR12D representing Group C won the shootout.

I am not having a dig because it sounds like you caught the rally stages which I barely made it up to, if anything that was the biggest problem because once there it felt like the FOS hill climb was not on and I had accidentally wandered into a separate event.

I think that is the main problem. Even with two days you cannot see everything and I think i must of missed them although I was at the paddock on Sunday at 8am. At one point on Sat we were trying to watch the drift cars come in/out of the paddock and the red arrows display at the same time.

Last year you had the touring car shootout which was great to see because all the drivers were really on it plus you had super-tourers as well. Audi and DS3 rallycross were missing plus many drift cars although i guess Jap fest being on the same weekend was partly a reason? Yes the Jag might of won the shootout but you have to wonder what would have happened if Gobstopper 2 was aloud to run this year. Most likely would have been 3 on the trott.

Maybe next year I will try the full four days as I think you need it to get everything.

[Dakkon]

I was not going to go but ended up being offered a free ticket for Saturday, went down on the bike, so no issues with traffic or parking.

Was a good day, ended up having some drinks with the Caterham execs so that was pretty cool.

My one gripe, the big motorbike stand of previous years with loads of manufacturer bikes was missing which I was very disappointed about, apart from that a very pleasant way to spend a Saturday.

[speedtwelve]

Did Saturday this year; the O/H and I also reckoned it seemed quieter than usual. Thought the altered racing car paddock layout this year was better, a bit more open. Regarding car convoys being broken up on the way in; I ended-up being sent to a forward car park at the back of the house as the marshals reckoned my VX220 wouldn't have made it into the main fields without grounding the nose. I'd previously lost the front lower spoiler on my TVR on the metal matting in FOS car parks.

Re: current F1 drivers; Bottas drove an F1 Merc on Saturday.

[NAS]

I went with my dad for 3 days, only missing Sunday. We drove from Holland.

The whole trip was really rather expensive (try paying for a hotel at this time) but so worth it. Nothing like this exists on the continent, and if it does, on a much smaller scale.

You lot really don't know how lucky you are to have this on your doorstep. We had a great time and will go again in a few years.

[Cold]

I now have a sunburned nose courtesy of Goodwood. To whom should I complain?

[BricktopST205]

NAS said:

I went with my dad for 3 days, only missing Sunday. We drove from Holland.

The whole trip was really rather expensive (try paying for a hotel at this time) but so worth it. Nothing like this exists on the continent, and if it does, on a much smaller scale.

You lot really don't know how lucky you are to have this on your doorstep. We had a great time and will go again in a few years.

I was very surprised how many NL plates I saw actually. Never put the dutch down as a "petrolhead" country.

[Cold]

pozi said:

Drag car was Rat Trap, slightly old school but 3000hp and lots of burn outs up the hill means it looked the part,

That was so, so loud. Incredibly loud. I was opposite the House for Sunday's run and when it went WOT it was properly I can feel the hairs inside my ears vibrating loud. I spied a kid in front of me who was wearing headphones and he still burst into tears when Rat Trap did its thing. (Mum produced a soothing cupcake which did the trick.)
Awesome stuff.

[NAS]

BricktopST205 said:

NAS said:

I went with my dad for 3 days, only missing Sunday. We drove from Holland.

The whole trip was really rather expensive (try paying for a hotel at this time) but so worth it. Nothing like this exists on the continent, and if it does, on a much smaller scale.

You lot really don't know how lucky you are to have this on your doorstep. We had a great time and will go again in a few years.

I was very surprised how many NL plates I saw actually. Never put the dutch down as a "petrolhead" country.

It's tough to be a petrolhead in Holland. Very tough. Which is why we were happy to drive all this way to Goodwood to experience an event like the FOS.

[speedtwelve]

Cold said:

That was so, so loud. Incredibly loud. I was opposite the House for Sunday's run and when it went WOT

It was great, wasn't it? I remember the first time I watched a Top Fuel dragster run at Santa Pod. Despite earplugs I wasn't ready for the chest vibrations! Reheated fast-jets? Pah! An 8000bhp V8 was by a mile the most violently loud thing I've ever heard.

[BricktopST205]

speedtwelve said:

It was great, wasn't it? I remember the first time I watched a Top Fuel dragster run at Santa Pod. Despite earplugs I wasn't ready for the chest vibrations! Reheated fast-jets? Pah! An 8000bhp V8 was by a mile the most violently loud thing I've ever heard.

I was lucky enough be right next to the house last year when they had the funny car. Chest vibrations were something else!

[ecsrobin]

NAS said:

It's tough to be a petrolhead in Holland. Very tough. Which is why we were happy to drive all this way to Goodwood to experience an event like the FOS.

Eindhoven has the DAF museum which was certainly more interesting than I expected it to be!

[ukaskew]

Nik da Greek said:

XP5 on the McLaren stand was the car that first did 240 mph. Quite a thing to have shoved over the back out of the way!

That's my favourite thing about FoS. You might have crowds around the latest Ferrari but it's always a nice surprise what you find just sat there with hardly anyone looking. I like that one of the Audi Le Mans winners is still being rolled out - unwashed - from its win however many years ago.

[Streetrod]

speedtwelve said:

Cold said:

That was so, so loud. Incredibly loud. I was opposite the House for Sunday's run and when it went WOT

It was great, wasn't it? I remember the first time I watched a Top Fuel dragster run at Santa Pod. Despite earplugs I wasn't ready for the chest vibrations! Reheated fast-jets? Pah! An 8000bhp V8 was by a mile the most violently loud thing I've ever heard.

I arrived early on Sunday morning so got to spend about half an hour chatting to the Rat Trap crew, what a nice bunch of lads they were.They were more that happy to answer all my questions about the fuel systems on the blown Donavan big block and what its like to drive car running on 95% nitro

They are heros in my book

[ecsrobin]

ukaskew said:

Nik da Greek said:

XP5 on the McLaren stand was the car that first did 240 mph. Quite a thing to have shoved over the back out of the way!

That's my favourite thing about FoS. You might have crowds around the latest Ferrari but it's always a nice surprise what you find just sat there with hardly anyone looking. I like that one of the Audi Le Mans winners is still being rolled out - unwashed - from its win however many years ago.

Agreed, the Ferrari 250 GTO on the Cartier lawn was always ignored whilst everyone focussed on the supercars. Not everyday you see a £30+mil car with no ropes around (unless you’re a Goodwood regular)

[oceanview]

My fourth visit this year- did Friday and Saturday. After an early alarm at my luxury Chichester Uni digs (no tv in rooms!) , I was only about 3 miles from Goodwood.
On the road by 6.30 am and queued for about the last mile, for about 20 minutes.

On the Cartier lawn just after 7.00am, so nice to be able to see some very special cars and some decent photos before the hoardes arrived!

Friday, I had a look around the stalls/stands and as others have mentioned, I thought there were fewer this year.
The Lexus promotions girl seemed quite keen for me to book a test drive in the LC!

Saturday, arrived early again and no real problems although as been mentioned elsewhere, some of the parking people were particularly "special" this year.
Had a grandstand ticket for today and glad I did as I was knackered after yesterday! Enjoyed the day and took more interest in the paddocks this year- I particularly like the 1967 Honda RA300, that took John Surtees to victory in the Italian Grand prix!

I got Sabine smitzs autograph at ohlins suspension stand and saw Dereck Bell wandering around. Also saw Lord March on his balcony ( surrounded by all the hanger-ons) enjoying a drink and probably thinking about how much he's made this year!

I think this year there was more of the "society" lot wandering around with bored, over-done women in tow!