The theme of the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2013, scheduled for 5-7 July, will focus on the many highlights from the first 20 years of the wildly popular motorsports celebration. The 20th annual Festival will see the biggest, best, fastest, loudest and most outrageous vehicles of all time invited back to Goodwood House and the 1.16-mile Goodwood hillclimb in West Sussex, England.
Star cars and motorcycles, plus drivers and riders from each of the world’s major motorsport disciplines, past and present, will be featured at Goodwood, including champions from Formula 1, Indycar, the World Rally Championship, Superbikes, NASCAR, World Sports Cars and Touring Cars.
Goodwood plans to recapture many of the outstanding Festival of Speed moments from the 1993-2012 era, whether that’s great cars from the USA and elsewhere making a rare return to the UK; or famous car/driver pairings reunited.
The 2013 Goodwood Festival of Speed will see all manner of memorable — and often outrageous — contraptions on the 1.16-mile hillclimb. Expect to see truly diverse range of vehicles, from pioneering steam cars to Dakar trucks – and perhaps even a Soapbox racer or two – in additional to historic dragsters doing burn-outs outside Goodwood House. Goodwood also hopes to have the newly-completed and running Bloodhound Land Speed Record car on display just days before its trip to South Africa for the land speed record attempt.
The Michelin Supercar Paddock will once again feature a selection of the world’s most recent and sought-after high performance cars, as well as offering the rare chance to see them in action on Goodwood’s famous hillclimb.
At the top of the Hill, Goodwood is planning significant layout and content developments to the Top Paddock and Forest Rally Stage, which will once more feature the greatest cars and drivers from the history of rallying.
On two wheels, motorcycles will again provide some of the most dramatic action of the Festival weekend, with world champion riders aboard the most iconic machines of the last century. Additionally, for the first time, a dedicated area will provide a special focus for the motorcycle content and for riders attending the Festival in the popular exhibition site.
Away from the action on the Hill, the Cartier ‘Style et Luxe’ Concours d’Elegance will provide some of the world’s most extraordinary vehicles displayed in relaxed surroundings, accompanied by a soundtrack of fine jazz. As on the Hill, the selection of cars on the Cartier Lawn will celebrate the very best content from the first 20 years of the Festival of Speed.
The Goodwood Action Sports Arena will be bigger and better than ever, offering yet more high-octane two-wheeled entertainment. Also enlarged and improved for 2013 will be the Aviation Exhibition, which will be more centrally located within the Festival of Speed site to further reinforce Goodwood’s links with aviation and its history.
All this, along with a host of vehicles and competitors new to Goodwood, and a number of unexpected treats, will provide a fitting birthday party for the world’s greatest celebration of motor sport history and car culture.
Goodwood Festival of Speed founder Lord March said, “I really can’t believe that we’ve been staging the Festival of Speed for 20 years already; the time has simply flown by! I wasn’t too certain if anyone would be interested in coming along to our very first event back in 1993. We expected around 2,500 people, and over 25,000 turned up! Today the Festival attracts over 185,000 enthusiastic and knowledgeable spectators, which I just could not have imagined way back in 1993. I think it is safe to say that the event now looks like it is here to stay!”
For additional information, visit www.goodwood.com/motorsport or call +44 (0)1243 755055
[Source: Goodwood; photo: Peter Burn]
