Author: Pat W

Goodwood 2010 Video: 1929 Bugatti

While you wander around the two paddocks at Goodwood, or indeed any race paddock anywhere, you’ll encounter cars being warmed up ready for their next run. Today was obviously no exception, yet the eclectic nature of Goodwood is such that you don’t know what you’ll find when you head towards the engine noise and break through the crowd of people around it.

The first car I saw being revved up this year was this 1929 Bugatti, one of the top Grand Prix car of the era. These days it looks like an old dusty relic but it has a ton of history behind it, and can still make a noise and go fast up the hill.

Goodwood 2010: Outtakes

I had great day at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, it seemed I was constantly doing something and the day went by in a flash. I think I’m coming to the realisation that it deserves two days, there is just so much there now that you have no hope of covering it in a single day, I felt like I was rushing from place to place to see everything I wanted to see.

I’ve not been home all that long so I’ve not sorted through my photos and videos just yet, and I’m too tired tonight to write a proper blog post about my day. How about a teaser?

As always with any motorsport event it takes a little while to get your eye in, and of course for a while you just want to enjoy the event and take in the sights, sounds and smells. Trying to time your shot for that small gap between people’s heads is also quite tricky when you are panning the camera. This means my camerawork was quite dodgy for a while so to tease you until I go through them properly, here are some pretty horrible outtakes…

Hamilton takes an old McLaren up the hill
Outtake: Lewis Hamilton, McLaren-TAG MP4/2C (thanks for the magazine, luv)
Outtake: Jean-Eric Vergne, Red Bull
Outtake: Jean-Eric Vergne, Red Bull RB5... almost

1989 Lotus-Judd 101... he booted the throttle and stuffed it in the hay, breaking the front wing. This is from the big-screen TV.

What, you weren’t expecting a proper update straight away, were you?

Off to Goodwood..

I’m attending the Goodwood Festival of Speed on Sunday. I won’t be posting updates from the venue as I expect to be too busy, so I’m not even bringing my netbook, but do keep an eye on my Twitter account for the odd update and photo during the day – I hope to get Twitvid working too but that may be too big a drain on my data plan.

I’m attending the Goodwood Festival of Speed on Sunday, my 4th visit. It has grown every year and I doubt I’ll cover everything I want to see but if you accept that before you get there it is hard to have a bad time.

I won’t be posting to the blog until I get home, but do keep an eye on my Twitter account for the odd update and photo during the day. If you happen to tweet me don’t be offended if you don’t get a reply until much later, it means I’m enjoying the event!

I’m Watching… #3: NASCAR road courses, F1, F2, more

I watch too much racing. What have I been watching over the last couple of weeks?

I watch too much racing. What have I been watching over the last couple of weeks?

Formula 2 – Valencia 2009
Race 1 of 2. This was the ‘comeback race’ for the F2 name, unfortunately it was at the Ricardo Tormo circuit so it was rubbish, really boring. I don’t think I’ve seen a good race at that circuit in my life, any series. Maybe MotoGP. Martin Haven did his best to inject enthusiasm and a great deal of knowledge of ‘old F2’ and of drivers parachuting in from other series, but really you need the on-track stuff to be good as well and it really wasn’t. I missed the 2nd race, I have a feeling I watched it live on their site but I can’t remember, it was a year ago..

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Nationwide Series – Road America 2010 *live*
I was curious to see the 2nd-tier NASCAR series on a road course, and it had Jacques Villeneuve guest-driving and a couple of guys were pulling the double with this race in Wisconsin on Saturday and the Cup race in California on Sunday. I was disappointed. JV and Carl Edwards had a great battle at the front, unfortunately the rest of the field were hopeless and it came to a head with a lengthy red-flag delay after a multi-car pile-up which is when I gave up following it. I didn’t expect a ‘Dega-style “Big One” on a road course! Apparently once the race restarted it was brought back under safety car multiple times, and finished some hours after I’d left it. Needs work.

IZOD IndyCar – Iowa 2010 *live*
This was a great race, you could tell that from the few times the Race Control cameras were pointing in the right direction. I’m going to have to watch this again with the TV feed. To give them credit they did stick with the lead battle for a good while, unfortunately the lack of direction meant I missed the battling in the pack. Tony Kanaan had a brilliant run and it was great to see him win and to do it with a pass for the lead as well, excellent. I wasn’t sure what happened to Marco Andretti’s early run, I guess the car went away from him just as TK’s was coming to him. Needless to say the ‘red cars’ were all up there in contention throughout, but I do think Andretti Autosport are regaining the relative pace they had against them some time ago. Good to see.

Sprint Cup, Sonoma 2010 *live*
Again I wanted to see how the stock car people handled the road courses. I expected something more professional than the Nationwide race and that’s largely what we had, after all most of them have driven at Sonoma for some years now. It was a pretty good race with a mixture of strategies throughout the field, it was great to see DTM driver Mattias Ekstrom lead the race for a while on his debut but it was former V8 Supercar driver Marcos Ambrose who was in control much of the time – until he threw it away with a driver error under caution, allowing Jimmie Johnson to win. It was interesting to see how the race turned into a knife fight in the closing stages, it was like a 25-minute BTCC race with cars being pushed all over the track and spun around. This race also had a red flag period caused by a multi-car shunt, thankfully it was cleared up significantly faster than in the Nationwide event. There was the usual problem of going full-course yellow for someone spinning and resuming within 30 seconds, though it wasn’t as bad as usual and some incidents were allowed to develop and recover before the safety car was called so there is some progress.

Formula 1 – European GP 2010 *live*
A moderately interesting race, it was better than I was expecting for this circuit so that is a small victory. Mark Webber was exceedingly lucky and that’s a huge victory. Kobayashi really proved his worth by staying out on one set of tyres for that length of time when nobody else seemed able to, then using his fresher tyres to put a move on Alonso. Well played, Kamui. There was that dodgy safety car call with Hamilton and his penalty, we’re a few days on and now I’m a bit talked-out about it but you can read more here.

The World Cup
A lot of prime motorsport viewing time has been taking up with the World Cup instead. Some of it really wasn’t worth bothering with and I’m by no means a fan of the game, yet others have been enjoyable. There was a game last Tuesday between Japan and somebody which was the best game I’ve seen in ages.

Looking Ahead
Le Tour de France starts this weekend and over the next couple of weeks I’ll be watching the nightly highlights on ITV4 if they are as they were last year. I’m also heading to Goodwood for the Festival of Speed on Sunday.

Blog note.
You may have noticed I’m not very good at sticking to ideas, the weekly review each Monday/Tuesday hasn’t happened lately due to one thing and another (mainly the World Cup) so I’m reworking it into an ad-hoc approach to be done whenever I feel like posting an update. Better to be more ‘organic’ that way rather than doing a post for the sake of it.