Power to the people
YOU MIGHT have been to this guy’s house. Over the past 25 years, four million tickets have been sold for the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Allowing for those who come every year, at least half a million people have wandered through the parkland around Goodwood House on the south coast of England over the four July days on which it hosts the Festival.
Charles Gordon-Lennox, 11th Duke of Richmond, started the Festival in 1993 on what is essentially his driveway. It was joined by the Revival in 1998 and the Members’ Meeting in 2014. Together, these three annual events have become as central to motorsport culture as the great races and rallies they celebrate. They outrank the British Grand Prix on the bucket list of Australian or American motorsport fans making a pilgrimage to Europe, and maybe Monaco and Le Mans too.
If that’s your only experience of this place, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s a permanent motorsport theme park, so vast and varied are its structures and entertainments. For the three weeks it takes to construct, the Festival is the
