[ THE INSIDERS ]
A recent track day triggered memories of a cheap and cheerful track experience idea that me and my friends cooked up in the village pub 40 years ago
As yet another GT3RS came steaming past me down the Lavant Straight a few weeks back, I couldn’t help but reminisce about simpler times at Goodwood. The best ideas always seem to start in a village pub, and so it was 40 years ago. Me and my friend Charlie in the Tilford Barley Mow talking all things cars, as we did every Sunday night before returning to college the next day.
In 1982, the ‘track day’ wasn’t really a thing. Proper racers did use tracks to run testing sessions, but on that Sunday, Charlie had met a bloke who reckoned we could rent the Goodwood circuit for just £250 for the day. Just imagine, if we could find another eight or so mates – 25 quid for our own racetrack for a day. How could we say no? It was a no-brainer. We weren’t completely daft or irresponsible, and we even coughed up the additional £250 for medical support.
The level of excitement among our gang was so infectious we felt sure to get our money back. No need to collect cash or names, ‘if you build it, they will come’. Fast forward a few weeks later and we arrived at the deserted circuit waiting for everyone to turn up… except, they didn’t. Just the three of us, and for context, we weren’t exactly flush with cash. Back then if you wanted something remotely cool and sporty that could be bought for a shoestring, it had to be Italian, and we’d overlook the fact that our cars would soon revert to iron oxide. Charlie had an Alfa Giulietta Spider bought for £500, I had a Fiat 124 Spider (£1200) and Tobias represented the higher end of the performance envelope with a Lancia Beta Montecarlo (£2000: he sold double glazing…).
‘I remember spinning off the track in a one-off Ferrari Boxer Targa belonging to a Gordon Gecko City type’
Medical support was present with a couple of paramedics in a Bedford Ambulance scoffing doughnuts and reading The Sun. We were also joined briefly by someone we’d never even seen in the pub who did a couple of laps on his Honda 750 Four before going home because he, ‘didn’t really understand the concept of track days’. And so off we went – no track experience, no tuition, no marked braking points or apexes – but in three very slow cars on a very fast circuit, so hopefully unlikely to do much damage. Round and round we went. In an era before speed cameras and traffic restrictions, the sensation of speed was very similar to how we drove round our native Surrey. Rather disappointingly, it wasn’t anything like the British Grand Prix, but it was our British Grand Prix.
The Lancia was the first to blow up after a couple of hours. The Fiat lost about 40 horsepower and called it a day. And the Alfa gave up with terminal boredom. So ended our bargain Goodwood Revival. And I know our £500 would hardly get you a decent hospitality ticket nowadays, so we can’t complain. We did soon return to the track. My cousin nearly totalled a Cessna when he lost control of his Fiat Strada at Madgwick.
Another time, Tobias’s sister knew some Gordon Gecko types in the City and I remember spinning off the track in a one-off Ferrari Boxer Targa, and later the same day one of their group rolled a Porsche 928 which they thought most amusing. The Lancia is long gone, my Fiat is now full of chickens but Charlie still uses his Alfa. Over the years, I’ve returned to Goodwood on many occasions. More horsepower, more skills and slightly more maturity. But nothing can match the magic of the three of us on our own racing track. Three rusty cars and three very lucky young scallywags.
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