Secrets of a Goodwood drive: PH Blog
The realities of driving a car up the hill at the Festival of Speed
And if you successfully navigate that you have the looming terror of Molecomb, a corner that has been the public undoing of many a Goodwood hired hand. Looks nothing trackside. But if you can see the corner and haven't prepared for it, you're likely taking a trip into the bales. Then you've got the Flint Wall. And the tighter-than-it-looks right into the final run to the line. Lots of potential for making a tit of yourself in other words, potentially in some priceless museum piece you had no place sitting in, let alone driving.
This was a year ago. 12 months later I have finally made it to the top of the hill in the same car! I'll spare you the long version but the GTAm and I had unfinished business. And this year was my chance.
To my mind if you're going to drive a car at Goodwood it should be like this one - beautiful to look at, fairly straightforward to drive, sounds like it's going faster than it is. This time nothing was going to stop me! What's that? Time to go? Oh, hang on, it's not firing up... Cue some frantic Italian arm waving, some fuel dribbled into the intake trumpets and - BA-BA-BA-BAAAAAAAM - yup we're up and running. God, it's noisy! 129db going by a spectator with a noise meter last year, that side exhaust blaring from under the driver's door, violent bangs and pops making onlookers wince.
When it happens, the run is pretty sedate. The clutch slips up through the first three gears and I think a good proportion of my 200-odd horsepower has fled the stable; that or I've not got a full complement of cylinders firing. No matter. I make it around the first bend. Molecomb is successfully taken care of - slowly - in a theatrical double-declutched downshift. The flint wall remains unscuffed. And when I make it to the top the rest of the batch is waiting, arms folded, with a general air of 'what the hell took you so long?'
Most probably didn't realise it had been a whole year.
Dan
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And even for such a short stint and with a slightly sickly engine it was still a magic thing to drive. Would LOVE to give it a proper run. And thanks for that anecdote AC43, made me chuckle!
Mega, mega car. An absolute privilege to be allowed to sit in it, let alone drive it!
Dan
Toyota had a competition in 2012 for the UK launch of the GT86 where 86 people got the chance to drive one up the hill on the Thursday and I was lucky enough to win a place (but unlucky enough to get given an auto)!
But as has been said, it isn't very wide so in places it makes 50 seem pretty lairy in a current production car - in something as rare as that Alfa brave pills must be essential!
(Lovely car, one of my faves in the paddock, too)
Cheers,
Dan
Having been lucky enough to drive the hillclimb every year (bar one) since the Moving Motor Show started in 2010; I totally agree that it is a surprisingly hair-raising task, especially in a car that you’ve never even sat in before let alone driven.
I must admit I was openly disappointed when they introduced the chicane and ‘enforced’ 50 mph speed limit a couple of years ago. Although I won’t deny that I was secretly quite relieved that I didn’t need to drive that quickly past the wall.. 50 mph is plenty, especially on that section!
I saw that car struggling a bit on the live stream on the sunday, sounded like the clutch might have been slipping a fair bit. You did well to get it up the hill!
Dan
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