72nd Members' Meeting: Issue One

G O O DWO O D ROA D RACING CLUB

Group B rally cars announced ( P A G E

– Remembering

1)

Goodwood’s mythical ‘60-second lap’; Group 1 Touring Cars come to the Motor Circuit ( P A G E

2)

– Sir Stirling Moss

honoured at the Members’ Meeting ( P A G E

3)

– How you buy

your 72nd Members’ Meeting tickets ( P A G E

F L A M E - S P I T T I N G FO U R -W H E E L D R I V E G R O U P B

4)

WELCOME TO THE NEW

S U P E R CA R S S ET T O B L I T Z M E M B E R S ’ M E ET I N G

G R R C N E W S L ET T E R

The most powerful, most fearsome cars to ever compete in the World Rally Championship are set to star at the 72nd Members’ Meeting. Examples of every significant four-wheel-drive Group B car – including the Audi quattro, Peugeot 205 T16, Lancia Delta S4, Ford RS200 and MG Metro 6R4 – will take to the Goodwood Motor Circuit for the first time ever, in a frenzy of flame-spitting action.

Up to 20 Group B monsters will participate in an innovative sprint-style event. The cars will be released individually in a standing-start one-lap format, giving spectators the best possible chance to appreciate their mind-blowing performance. All will be running in their ultimate tarmac specification and will feature lowered ride heights and aerodynamic aids to help push their tyres onto the asphalt.

With upwards of 600bhp and weighing less than 900kg, the performance of these mid-1980s rally icons is phenomenal. Indeed, special measures will be required to avoid cars running on the rev limiter around the faster parts of the circuit: temporary chicanes will provide additional acceleration and deceleration zones to demonstrate the awesome agility of these rallying giants. Just as these machines seared themselves into motor sport folklore three decades ago, so the 72nd Members’ Meeting promises to create a whole new set of Group B memories.

Find out how to secure tickets for the 72nd Members’ Meeting in March 2014 on the back page

It’s my great pleasure to welcome you to the first edition of our new GRRC newsletter. As a member of the Goodwood Road Racing Club, you will have received updates in the past, but with such a busy calendar ahead and so much to tell you about, the newsletter has now grown into this new, bigger format.

Of course, the biggest news for 2014 is the fast-approaching 72nd Members’ Meeting. This new annual event, held exclusively for GRRC members, will bring back a great tradition of motor sport at Goodwood: during the Circuit’s active years between 1948 and 1966, the non-international meetings held here by the British Automobile Racing Club (BARC) were called Members’ Meetings. They were the regular race weekends on the Goodwood calendar, often low-key but always well-supported, bringing together the club’s many enthusiasts and friends to enjoy a broad crosssection of motor racing. The first one took place on 13 August 1949, with the final Meeting – the 71st – in 1966.

Now, after a 48-year pause, we’re resuming the series with the 72nd Members’ Meeting on 29-30 March 2014. The event will have a unique atmosphere, with some extraordinary action on the track, some memorable activities off it, and a huge party on the Saturday night. This is very much a GRRC event held for GRRC members and their guests – I do hope you’ll support it. As well as information and announcements in this newsletter, you’ll also find details of how to order your 72nd Members’ Meeting tickets on the back page.

I look forward to seeing you there.

James MacNaughton C LU B S E C R ETA RY

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No. ONE

U LT R A P OW E R F U L 1 9 8 0 s F 1 CA R S S ET T O D E M O N S T R AT E T H E I R T U R B O C H A R G E D P R O W E S S AT G O O DW O O D One of the most eagerly anticipated events of the 72nd Members’ Meeting is a demonstration of turbocharged Formula 1 cars of the type that competed from 1977 until 1988. Of course such cars never raced at Goodwood, but even after its closure in 1966, the circuit remained a UK test venue for F1 teams. In the 1980s, Goodwood regularly hosted these fearsomely fast F1 turbocharged missiles, some of which were capable of producing 1400bhp in qualifying trim. Over the weekend of 29-30 March, examples of this wild breed will return to the track.

Members will be familiar with the fact that the Goodwood lap record, a time of 1min 20.4sec set in 1965, is held jointly by Sir Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark.

What is less well known is that another, much faster, but unofficial time was set by world champion Nelson Piquet, behind the wheel of a Brabham B52 powered by an incredible BMW turbocharged engine during a testing session in 1983.

Rumours of a near mythical sub-60-second lap of the 2.4-mile circuit have now been confirmed by Goodwood’s FortyOneSix.com site. Motoring journalist Rob Widdows was there when Piquet lapped Goodwood in the Brabham in under a minute. ‘Nelson was clearly fired up,’ recalls Widdows. ‘The car was mesmerisingly quick; it was going like a rocket ship. It was as if he had been shot out of a bazooka.’

You can read the full story of that epic lap by visiting FortyOneSix.com

R E C O R D G R I D P R O M I S E D FO R P R E -WA R B U G AT T I S P E CTA C U L A R

A thrilling pre-war Bugatti race will be one of the highlights of the 72nd Members’ Meeting, with the expectation of a record-breaking 30-strong grid. That should comfortably exceed the current record, believed to be a race for fewer than 20 Bugattis held in 2013.

The race will mark the 90th anniversary of the T35, Bugatti’s most successful racing car, and the Members’ Meeting line-up will feature a host of T35s along with its T51, T54 and T59 variations.

G E R RY M A R S H A L L REMEMBERED WITH GROUP 1 RACE Goodwood Motor Circuit is delighted to announce its first ever ‘out-ofperiod’ race will be named the Gerry Marshall Trophy. The race will be held for Group 1 saloon cars of a type that raced up to 1982.

Gerry may be the racing driver who famously entitled his autobiography Only Here For The Beer, and he may have often favoured a sideways approach over finely finessed racing lines, but his incredible 625 race wins speak for themselves. And the celebrations in the bar afterwards were as memorable as the racing!

Gerry was undoubtedly the biggest character (and winner) in the world of 1970s saloon car racing, winning in Production, Group 1 and ‘Super Saloon’ machinery – predominantly with Vauxhall and Triumph.

On 19 March 1966 Gerry competed at the 68th Members’ Meeting at Goodwood, and was a long-time supporter – and winner – at the Revival. He died in 2005 and, with the blessing of his family, Goodwood is proud to honour Gerry’s memory with this exciting new event at the 72nd Members’ Meeting.

Expect to see a number of ex-Marshall machines in action, helping to fill a grid that will be the finest since the Group 1 races were originally staged. On the ‘home front’, the line-up will include examples of the Ford Capri and Escort, Rover SD1, Mini 1275 GT, Triumph Dolomite and Vauxhall Firenza.

American muscle will be represented by the Chevrolet Camaro, while the Alfa Romeo GTV, BMW 3.0Si, Opel Commodore and Volkswagen Golf bring continental glamour, and the rotary-engined Mazda RX7 illustrates innovative Japanese engineering.

All cars will be running unsilenced, offering spectators the now rare aural delight of a wailing Essex V6 or the sonorous bark of a Rover V8 on full song. In another first for Goodwood, all cars will wear the iconic liveries that made the 1970s and 1980s such a truly colourful era.

The Members’ Meeting will feature many cars raced in period by star names such as Amherst Villiers, Raymond Mays, Raymond Sommer, Louis Chiron, Achille Varzi, Robert Benoist, Jean-Pierre Wimille, Anne Itier, Albert Divo, Rene Dreyfus and, of course, William Grover-Williams.

Indeed, this spectacular race has been named the Grover-Williams Trophy, in memory of the British driver who famously won the inaugural Monaco GP in a British Racing Green Bugatti T35 in 1929.

Thanks to authentically recreated racing liveries, all the cars in the Gerry Marshall Trophy will look exactly as they did when they raced in period

C E L E B R AT E M O T H E R I N G S U N DAY IN TRUE RACING STYLE And as it’s Mother’s Day on Sunday 30 March, we will offer a complimentary ticket if you would like to bring your mum to the event. There will be a special enclosure designed for the ladies to help celebrate this very important day.

Full details of the enclosure, and other good reasons to bring your mum to the Members’ Meeting, will be disclosed in the New Year.

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SIR STIRLING MOSS HONOURED W I T H N E W T R O P H Y R A C E AT T H E 7 2 N D M E M B E R S ’ M E ET I N G We are delighted to announce that the 72nd Members’ Meeting will honour the sports car career of none other than ‘Mr Goodwood’ himself, Sir Stirling Moss, with a sumptuous grid of closed cockpit GTs of a type that raced at Goodwood between 1958 and 1962.

The entry list for the inaugural Moss Trophy will be a wonderfully authentic representation of what a Tourist Trophy grid would have looked like during this glorious Grand Touring era, before the prototypes appeared on the scene and dominated proceedings. While the RAC TT Celebration we see at the Revival is full of exquisite cars, it is a somewhat rose-tinted perspective – rather fuller of foreign exotica than the period race ever managed to attract!

The Members’ Meeting will see a truly realistic early 1960s grid, where steel-bodied E-types will do battle with 250 GTO and SWB Ferraris, Aston Martin DB4 GTs, C1 Corvettes, early Cobras, and of course the nimble little Morgan Plus 4s, Lotus Elites, and Porsche-Abarth Carrera GTLs that made the race such a varied spectacle.

So while the priceless exotica will still be in action, they will be joined in battle by a variety of cars that will paint a picture almost indistinguishable from an early 1960s TT grid. The sight and sound of the cars in action will rekindle the era of Sir Stirling Moss’s dominance of the great race.

(From top): Moss’s links with Goodwood began at the Motor Circuit’s very first meeting in 1948, when he won the 500cc race the day after his 19th birthday; Moss went on to win the RAC TT four times at Goodwood, including two victories in Rob Walker’s Ferrari 250 GT SWB (seen here in 1960); it’s his success in sports cars in particular that is celebrated in naming the Members’ Meeting GT sports car race ‘The Moss Trophy’

B L O O M I N G G R E AT SHOW OF DAFFS FO R G O O DW O O D Back in the Goodwood Motor Circuit’s heyday, Lord March’s grandfather Freddie March always ensured a fine bloom of trackside flowers, as this image from the 1964 September TT shows. Remembering this sight when planning for the first Revival Meeting in 1998, Lord March made sure the flowers were back.

But how do you ensure a colourful floral display in March? Daffodils of course, which is why Goodwood turned to the same Dutch firm that supplied the flowers for the first Revival Meeting. ‘We’ve planted 300,000 yellow trumpets,’ Michael Lubbe of Lubbe & Zonen tells us, ‘with four varieties to flower at four different times to guarantee eight weeks of flowers.’

M A J E S T I C G O O DA B E N T L E Y R ET U R N S T O U K FO R T O N Y GAZE TROPHY The Festival of Speed and the Revival events have a long history of attracting cars that haven’t been seen in the UK for many years. The 72nd Members’ Meeting will continue that tradition, when the Bentley R-Type ‘Gooda’ Special Coupé takes to the track in the Tony Gaze Trophy, after having been shipped across the Atlantic by US-based GRRC member Terry O’Reilly.

Commissioned in the 1950s by Bob Gooda, the car features a coach-built fastback coupé body mounted on Bentley R-Type saloon running gear.

Resplendent in British Racing Green, there really isn’t a more stylish or luxurious way to go motor racing. The Gooda Bentley is sure to make a majestic return to UK racing as it dices with more familiar sports and GT cars in the Tony Gaze Trophy.

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H O U S E CA P TA I N S A N N O U N C E D FO R T H E 7 2 n d M E M B E R S’ M E ET I N G One of the ways in which the new Members’ Meeting will differ from the Festival of Speed and Revival events is in the creation of four Goodwood ‘Houses’. Every club member and guest is placed in a House when they buy their tickets for the new event in March 2014, either Methuen, Aubigny, Darnley or Torbolton (all four names are taken from traditional March family titles). Each House has a crest, a House colour, and an honorary House Captain. Those four Captains have now been confirmed, and we can reveal they are BTCC ace Anthony Reid; former F1 and sports car driver Jochen Mass; five-time Le Mans winner Emanuele Pirro; and French sports car racer Nicolas Minassian. The Captains will be earning points for their respective Houses on the track, along with all the other competitors, and you too could do your House proud in a series of off-track activities and challenges for all guests to take part in, young and old.

To find out which Goodwood House you belong to, make sure you secure your tickets for the 72nd Members’ Meeting. See below for details

T H E W ET T E R ,

B O O K YO U R S E L F A N E XC LU S I V E

T H E B ET T E R

S E AT AT T H E P R E M I E R E O F ‘ 1 ’ Following the great success of our special showing of the motor sport film Rush in the summer, the GRRC has once again teamed up with Studio Canal to offer members a preview of the new Formula 1 documentary, set for release in 2014. Simply called 1, it tells the story of a generation of drivers who risked their lives during F1’s deadliest period, and how key players in the sport stood up and campaigned for change. Featuring interviews with insiders like Max Mosley, Eddie Jordan and John Barnard, plus World Championship drivers including Sir Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda and Michael Schumacher, the film promises a real insight into F1’s development over the last 40 years. Spaces are still available for this special preview, which will take place at The Soho Hotel in London on 29 January 2014.

Tickets cost £90, including drinks and bowl food prior to the screening. Tickets can be booked by contacting the GRRC on 01243 755 057. We look forward to seeing you there!

No. ONE

MET H UEN

AUB I G NY

DA RNL EY

TO R B O LTO N

CREST:

CREST:

CREST:

CREST:

Lion

Fleur-de-Lys

Bull

Harp

C A P TA I N :

C A P TA I N :

C A P TA I N :

C A P TA I N :

Anthony Reid

Nicolas Minassian

Jochen Mass

Emanuele Pirro

COLOUR:

COLOUR:

COLOUR:

COLOUR:

Green

Blue

Silver

Red

One of the titles of the Duke of Richmond is Baron Methuen of Torbolton, a Scottish title. The lion’s head is taken from the Duke’s coat-of-arms.

The first Duchess of Aubigny was the French mistress of Charles II , mother of the first Duke of Richmond in 1672.

The fleur-de-lys is from the Richmond coat-of-arms.

Earl of Darnley is another Richmond title. The bull’s head appears on the coat-of-arms, below the battle cry, ‘Avant Darnlie’ – ‘Darnley to the fore.’

Lord Torbolton was a title created for the Duke of Richmond in 1675. The harp is taken from the shield of the Duke of Richmond’s coat-of-arms.

With the new Members’ Meeting being held in March, we could be in for the odd rain shower – but as every enthusiast knows, inclement weather can make for spectacular racing.

Witness Simon Hadfield’s storming drive to victory in the Project 212 Aston Martin at the 2013 Revival. In the past, there have been many drives made memorable by the conditions: Bernd Rosemeyer’s sublime mastery in the Nürburgring fog in 1936 earned him the soubriquet ‘Nebelmeister’ – master of the fog. In 1970 Pedro Rodríguez charged through torrential rain from 12th to win the Brands Hatch BOAC 1000km. And in 1984 Ayrton Senna’s minimum-grip, maximum-attack drive at Monaco might have given him his first GP win, had the race not been stopped early.

(From top): inch-perfect precision and huge bravery in the rain saw Rodríguez win at Brands in 1970.

Senna on a wet-weather charge at Monaco. Rosemeyer leads the field at the Nürburgring in 1936

Don’t forget to buy your tickets for the 72nd Members’ Meeting soon. Every GRRC member is invited to attend this exciting new event, which will take place on 29-30 March 2014. Weekend tickets, including the evening festivities, cost £120 per person. You can buy your tickets either online at www.goodwood.com or from the Ticket Office on 01243 755 055. And if you have yet to renew your membership, may we remind you to do so before 31 January. The GRRC office will be closed for the Christmas holidays from 20 December 2013 – 2 January 2014.

However, you can renew your membership online at www.goodwood.com by logging in with your username and password PAGE 4

IMAGES:

LAT, Getty, Bonhams, GP Library, Lee Halcox and Studio Canal