Sleeping Monkey

Sleeping Monkey Presents...

Goodwood Festival of Speed 2007

It’s the third time I’ve been, but the first I’ve been with Ineke, Dan and Ruth! It was good this year. A couple of new things to do, such as the opportunity to see how quickly you could change an actual F1 tyre (on an actual F1 car) on the Toyota stand. Dan, Tessa and I had a go, we were the quickest of the four teams trying it at the same time, in just 10.05 seconds! It was good fun.

Weather-wise it could have been friendlier, getting us both sunburnt and hailed on in the same day. Luckily when it started hailing we were just inside a small tent selling model cars, so didn’t actually get hit. But afterwards the ground couldn’t have been much muddier, and all our shoes got soaked.

Some good cars there this year, and the main advertising display was good as well. Toyota had strung 5 of their cars (celebrating 50 years) from huge cables above the crowd, was quite impressive:

Ineke and I had a go at the Powerturns, like Tessa and I did last year. They’re vehicles that have seperate motors for left and right wheels, and each person controls one side of the car to go either forward or to brake. For example, to turn right, the person on the left would push forwards and the right person would brake. Like a tank, basically. Ineke and I were suprisingly good! We stuck to the track, had some sharp turns and exciting moments! Tessa and Dan, however, were appalling! Well, if sticking to the track is “good”, they certainly weren’t…

All in all it was a good weekend – I’d well recommend going to the Festival of Speed. For those of you who don’t know what it is – it’s basically a Hill-Climb: cars from all eras race up a hill, either competing against the clock, or just showing off for the crowds. All the major manufacturers have stands there and there’s usually plenty of freebies (though they were slightly lacking this year…). So if you get a chance, go for it!