Thrills and spills

2009.09.20

Lining up for round 2 of the St. Mary's Trophy

This poor Mini didn't get beyond the parade lap - just the one small problem - not being able to see where the track goes!

And they're off! Jostling for postition into the first corner. The cream Mini on the left at the front won the race.

Some people resorted to off-roading to get through Madgewick, the first corner...

The Spitfires and Mustangs were out again this afternoon.

Adrian Newey on his lap of honour after winning the RAC TT Celebration race

This Alfa Romeo 'Disco Volante' was pretty much the slowest car in the Freddie March Memorial Trophy but I thought it was such a beautiful car I just had to include it here!

A Jaguar C-type losing it big time right in front of me - enjoy the sequence that follows... Both driver and car were fine afterwards!

It’s been the final day of the Goodwood Racing Revival today so I was there with my camera again. Between us Kevin and I have taken a staggering 1819 photos during the weekend – that’s got to be something of a record! Many of those were taken in continuous shooting mode while we were photographing moving cars and planes so the final number that will take up permanent residence on my hard drive will be somewhat smaller when I’ve weeded out all the missed and out of focus shots.

For today’s post I’ve concentrated on the action on track (with one exception) as there was some really exciting racing. Once again, some of the shots (the Mini ones) are Kevin’s as we were both using my camera. The second round of the St. Mary’s Trophy, the Mini race, was very exciting – lots of jostling for position and some of the cars went off road from time to time. Kevin had to leave at lunchtime for a gig so I spent much of the afternoon working my way around the outside of the track shooting the action, in particular the Royal Automobile Club TT Celebration race and the Freddie March Memorial Trophy. The former was won by Adrian Newey (the designer of many successful modern Formula 1 cars) and Bobby Rahal in a Lightweight E-type Jaguar – I caught Adrian Newey’s lap of honour after he crossed the finish line.

By the time I watched the latter race I was standing beside the marshal’s post at St. Mary’s Corner (most famous as the bend where Stirling Moss had the accident which ended his racing career). A Jaguar C-type came around the corner rather overenthusiastically and spun on the grass right in front of me. Sadly some of my shots were obscured by the marshals’ flags so I was rather disappointed. However, the driver, Stefan Ziegler, obviously felt my disappointment and, on his next lap kindly spun in the same place, this time finishing his twirl right in front of me. I was in continuous mode and managed 17 shots in three seconds, capturing pretty much the entire sequence, before my camera’s buffer filled up and it seized up on me. I’ve posted six of the shots here which give you an idea of the drama of the moment – remember all of this happened in 3 seconds!!

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this weekend – it’s a real privilege having such an event on our doorstep where you can have such close access to the cars and great views of the racing without fences in the way. Roll on next year!