There were a couple of moments where this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed might’ve been a little dicey. Day three of the four-day extravaganza, on Saturday, was cancelled due to 50mph winds. That may not sound all that alarming, but the ‘central feature’ at the Festival of Speed amounted to nearly 100 tonnes of steel sculpture soaring eight storeys over Goodwood House – seat of the Duke of Richmond since the 17th century – with typically several thousand petrolheads picnicking below. It also included six valuable Porsches hovering just below the clouds, and with the public told to stay away there was still every chance His Grace might suffer a Blaupunkt 962 stuck in his roof.
The Goodwood hillclimb takes place on a 1.16-mile section of the Duke’s drive and is flanked by 100,000 spectators. On Thursday, a wheel snapped off the back of a drifting Jaguar Mk 1 and bounced with furious energy into the crowd.
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