The Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy Celebration race at the Goodwood Revival 2016 was held Sunday, September 11th at the Goodwood Motor Circuit in West Sussex, England.
The RAC TT Celebration, flagship race of the Goodwood Revival has been all about the 2014 and 2015 winners. At the flag, it was last year’s victors, Chris Ward and reigning British Touring Car Champion Gordon Shedden in their Jaguar E-Type who recorded a back-to-back win.
Chris had established a healthy lead during his initial stint but a safety car period brought the Dutch AC Cobra pairing of David Hart and Giedo van der Garde into contention and then, until a last-minute incident, into the lead.
Chris took the lead at the start in spectacular fashion using the kerbs and even some of the grass to demoralise the rest of the field. As the lead stretched to over 10 seconds, it seemed as if he might be making Gordon’s task an easy one. With only a third of the race run he dived into the pits and the Scot jumped into the E-type. The picture, though, was about to change.
Jo Bamford’s Ferrari 250 GTO/64 and Bill Shepherd’s AC Cobra made contact and went off in spectacular fashion, went off and out came the safety car. When the race went green again Giedo, who had taken over from David closed in Gordon and, as those who had not pitted prior to the safety car period pulled in to make their driver changes, so their battle became one for the lead.
For a while Gordon seemed to have the answer for everything Giedo tried but with 17 minutes left, he went deep into Woodcote, locked up and went wide. The Dutchman took advantage and swept into the lead. Gordon recovered and closed in on the Cobra before being temporarily held up by a back marker. The gap first to second was now almost 1.5 seconds. Again Gordon was on a charge, closed right up to the back of Giedo’s car. Then with hardly any minutes left to run the Jaguar gave the Cobra the slightest of nudges, Giedo span off and victory went to the E-type.
The ‘off’ was almost into the barriers but Giedo still managed to recover, finishing fourth behind the close battle that had been going on for third and, now second, between another couple of AC Cobras, driven by, respectively, Michael Squire/Frank Stippler and Oliver Bryant/Andrew Smith.
Goodwood Revival 2016 – RAC Tourist Trophy Race Results
1. Chris Ward / Gordon Shedden, Jaguar E-Type
2. Michael Squire / Frank Stippler, AC Cobra
3. Oliver Bryant / Andrew Smith, AC Cobra
Goodwood Revival 2016 – RAC Tourist Trophy Race Video
[Source: Goodwood; photo: Drew Gibson]
