[woodcote]

That was another fab Friday at Goodwood - the fifth (we think) me and Mike have done. The day has become a bit of a ritual, although that was distrupted by an unscheduled hour or so on the Scalextric stand in 2018. No slot car racing this year...

The day starts with picking up Mike and trying to beat the early morning commuters through the bottleneck at Arundel. We were just the wrong side of 7.15am so sat in a queue on the A27 for fifteen minutes. However, the Goodwood organisation is magnificent and we were parked up and walking into the circuit just in time to admire the Spitfire and Mustang air display at 8am.

It's then straight under the tunnel and into the infield area - the Earl's Court motor show, the vast paddock and the aviation display. A much-sought-after paddock pass gets you a close up of all the cars that will race - or be displayed - over the weekend. For the rest of us, we can see about half the cars close up and see most of the others from the outside of the enclosed paddock.

Here are some of the Glover Trophy 1.5 litre Lotus Grand Prix cars...

         

Can Scalextric replicate that on their Lotus-Climax 25? Those cars were in the closed paddock, but the fabulous St Mary's Trophy 1950-59 slaoon cars were available for all to inspect and watch the mechanics work on them. They are always a highlight, as are the tiny single seaters - this year 1948-59 Formula 3 cars with their 500cc motorbike engines...

         

Also on show are some magnificent aircraft in the Freddie Match 'Spirit of Aviation' competition (Goodwood was - and still is - an airfield), including a couple of big military versions of the DC-3. There was also a D-Day Commemoration display of military vehicles, including this rather marvellous US Army halftrack...

         

We heard the Kinrara Trophy GT cars fire up and legged it down to the Assembly Area where they'd wait for their practice and qualifying session to begin...

         


After a brief pause and a second breakfast, it was off on our traditional anti-clockwise circumnavigation of the track - starting on the Lavant straight and ending at Woodcote corner. We caught the end of the Fordwater practice (what a great race between the Elan and the Mini Marcos this morning!) and then checked out a new grandstand on the inside of the Lavant straight - a great view coming out of the kink and then down to Woodcote.  That's where we watched the start of the Barry Sheene Memorial Trophy motorbike practice - and it was loud. The bikes were flat-out down the straight and the grandstand caught every decibel. Fantastic view, but we decided to wander down to Lavant corner a little earlier than usual and catch the bikes coming out of the second apex...

         

Lavant is the first stop, beer and snooze of the day. The double-apex corner is exciting to watch and the middle of the three grandstands was our spot for St Mary's (1950-59 saloon cars) and Goodwood Trophy (1930-1951 Grand Prix cars) practice sessions.