I Went To The Goodwood Festival Of Speed And Now I Almost Want To Move To England

Back in May, Matt sent me a Slack message over Victoria Day Weekend. “Since you’re not here, is it a bad time to ask if you wanna go to Goodwood this year?” Obviously, this was an occasion to break vacation boundaries on. The Goodwood Festival of Speed is one of the bucket-list events for just about any car enthusiast, a four-day experience of motoring nirvana where Lord March turns the driveway of Goodwood House into a hillclimb for automakers, racing teams, and legendary drivers showcase some of the greatest machines on the planet.

It’s an event I’ve watched almost religiously on livestream. It’s my Super Bowl every year the Eagles don’t make it to the big game, an event with such herculean expectations that I’d be amiss if I didn’t say yes. I don’t remember what I was doing prior to receiving that message, but I do know that I applied for media credentials immediately. This was the sort of opportunity I genuinely couldn’t pass up.

As it turned out, the cast and crew attending would be me, Jason, Adrian, and for part of the trip, Beau. This really meant bowling with the bumpers down, so I packed my bags, got an ETA, and counted down the days until I had to get to YYZ and hop a British Airways flight across the pond.

Terminal 5 at Heathrow gives quite the impression. Clean, organized, helpfully signed, and overarchingly modern, it does make my home airport of Pearson look a bit shabby. Even the tube train between the gates and customs featured floor-to-ceiling doors on the platforms. After a quick trip through HMRC’s digital gates, I emerged to both golden hour and the multi-storey car park, and it wouldn’t be long before a face I’d only seen online greeted me from behind the wheel of an ungainly people carrier. As it turned out, Jason was running the travel gauntlet and wouldn’t arrive until Thursday, with his layover being re-routed to Bermuda. This gave us a chance to complete a sidequest—grab pints with one of my cousins, scout out places to eat for the week, and hand over a comically oversized calculator for my great uncle to use in his magic act.

First stop after meeting at the train station, The Hole In The Wall, for proper Cumberland sausage atop mash, bathed in rich gravy and garnished with firm spring peas. In the glass? Cider, crisp and refreshing as the evening breeze after the mid-day sun of a British heatwave. Comfort food for a soul that, for some reason, almost felt like it was coming home. Granted, the fact that it was pub quiz night made us move along after one round, but that simply led us to an even more fascinating venue.

Presumably years ago, the Duke & Rye used to be a church, but it’s since converted to the universal religion. The stained glass windows and religious architecture remain, but wine and wafers have been replaced by ale and chips. Feeling a sudden urge to do the exact opposite of adding some class, I went with a low-ABV alcopop. Sadly, it was after this round that my cousin had to catch his train, so Adrian and I decided upon one last joint and found some truly unusual items on the menu. Mexican fiesta Detroit-style pizza. In Chichester. Right, two palomas it is, along with a gander at a street-parked Swiss-plated 500E before an Uber back to the house.

The next day, it was game time. Collect Jason and head back to the house to regroup before—hang on, are those the Red Arrows? Absolutely, and they put on one hell of a show. There’s nothing quite like watching Hawk T1As rip past your AirBNB in formation. Sure, we might’ve lingered a bit longer than we probably should have, but it wasn’t exactly my decision, and I certainly wasn’t mad about it.

Air show over, it was time to pop down to the media car park at Goodwood, and explore. Oh, what a treat. Up until then, I’d never seen a McLaren F1, then I saw two. It’s easy to not realize how dainty these ultimate ’90s speed machines are, no larger than an original Porsche Boxster despite featuring twelve cylinders and a top speed well on the heroic side of 200 MPH.

After a bit more wandering around, we stumbled upon the new Prelude, and I drew up the idea of putting Jason in the rear seat and Adrian in the front. At this point, I hadn’t seen a rear seat test of the new Prelude, so it only made sense to smash that one out. After that brief burst of productivity, it was time to unfortunately be, well, not productive. Beau, not having arrived yet, got us access to the unmarked Ton Club, which Jason described as being in a real building not far from the course. Unfortunately, Jason was thinking of the Goodwood Revival, not the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and we spent far too much time wandering the grounds in search of this mythical building.

After a bit of refreshment and a touch more wandering, we headed back to the AirBNB knowing we had to get our arses in gear for Friday, when we’d be shooting a shedload of reels. One toasty night later, we were ready to hit the ground running again, me largely behind the camera and Jason and Adrian largely in front of it. Reels of Rolls-Royces, Bugattis, and even the Rodius came quickly, some of which are already up on our Instagram. Things calmed down a bit in the afternoon, when we linked up with Beau at the Zenvo stand, met Jens Sverdrup, and ended up in the lounge after some mild secondhand embarrassment from Jason’s antics. Still, nothing a bit of Veuve Cliquot couldn’t take the edge off of, and that night’s curry in town was really something special. Tikka masalas, biryani, bhuna, poppadoms, and plenty of Cobra. Was I a tad exhausted? Sure, but great times with great people mean you never feel like collapsing on the sofa.

While I was expecting Saturday to be relatively uneventful besides our cadre of hoi polloi getting lounge access, it turned out that we’d be taking a Rolls-Royce Phantom up the hill. Pardon moi? As it turns out, riding shotgun with a driver hustling an enormous sedan up the hill climb is not dissimilar to the dynamic experience of having a friend in secondary school who genuinely thought he was the reincarnation of Colin McRae behind the wheel of his parents’ minivan. Ride quality? Absolutely. Handling? It’s in there somewhere, I’m sure of it. Honestly, the hardest part besides suddenly remembering I want lambswool mats in everything, was keeping the phone horizontal to record the run.

From there, the day kept rolling quickly. An appointment with Lotus’ Chief Creative Officer, a reel to shoot on Mercedes-Benz’s Blue Wonder aided by delightfully helpful representatives, a look inside the Duke’s home, the sort of mad sun-drenched blur of melding business with pleasure on a warm week. The perfect end to the day? Down the pub of course, this time the Angelsey Arms for a sort of duck salad so tasty, it didn’t need a vinaigrette.

Sunday at Goodwood brought a new twist as we met up with Doug, a contributor from Pennsylvania settled in Metropolitan London via Sydney and Germany. If you’ve been reading the site for a while, you might remember Doug’s tale of having to let go of his XJ Cherokee because it didn’t make sense to keep it in London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, and I’m pleased to report that he’s both a delightful human being and skilled on the grill. Together, we shot some more reels on stuff that we missed, but generally took it fairly easy.

Perhaps the most astonishing part of Goodwood is the scale. I haven’t seen any motor show in North America this full of fascinating cars in years, not to mention that drivers that shaped the culture were there, across seemingly every discipline. I saw Alain Prost give an interview from a balcony and Chris Forsberg slide his Nissan Altima drift car up the drive. Walking the grounds, you could see the Hyundai RN24 parked under a tree, the Beast of Turin looking menacing in its paddock, a BMW 2002 Turbo parked atop a display, and up-close access to rides as varied as a Gordon Murray T.50, a Jensen Interceptor with a hero shot of nitrous in the back, an Audi R18 Le Mans car, and even a variety of Facel Vegas. You wouldn’t see ropes-down stuff like that in North America.

So yeah, if you’ve ever wanted to visit the Goodwood Festival of Speed, I’m pleased to report it pretty much lives up to expectations, with the only caveat being that you can’t really see what’s on track without being in the grandstands. Even the car parks were special, with everything from R36 Passats to lovely old French hatchbacks showing up. However, the most striking part of the trip for me was that, beyond the glitz and glamor and incredible machinery, I fell into the age-old trap: Thinking I could live there. This next bit is going to get a touch self-indulgent, so I’ve peppered it with images of pretty cars in case you want to skip the boring introspection.

Since being a motoring writer in Canada usually involves testing press cars, that means I’m pretty much locked to one of three cities: Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver. As comparatively nice as the Pacific Northwest weather is, there’s absolutely no way I’m affording the cost of living in the lower mainland, home of the most expensive median apartment prices in Canada. At the same time, each time I’ve tried learning French, it hasn’t gone so well, so perhaps I’m just not cut out for Montreal.

That leaves me with Toronto, and as much as I love this city, I’ve been coming to a realization over the past few months that it doesn’t really fit my needs as well as it used to. For one, many of my close friends have moved away, started families, or simply become crazy busy trying to survive in this urban jungle. I’ll fully admit, I’m lucky being able to take advantage of a favorable exchange rate, but Toronto’s definitely become a case of haves and have-nots over the past decade. The housing bubble is real, and it’s produced some weird, if not unexpected, results.

Then there’s the fact that it’s feeling colder in recent years, and I’m not talking about the weather. The rudeness, the erasure of elements needed for DIY culture to thrive, the sheer volume of traffic whether you’re driving or taking public transit. I might be central to the highway network, but I’m also in a spot that’s somewhat light on both nightlife culture and friends in the neighbourhood, and it takes about half an hour to get just about anywhere. Even in Chichester the day before Goodwood, I saw something just not commonly seen in my neck of the woods—young people out on the town in reasonably budget-friendly establishments. People my age living life, not just working a double, but instead drinking, playing snooker, occasionally laughing, and chatting nonsense with friends.

Plus, there’s something weirdly charming about the reality of the culture. As Adrian pointed out, there is a lot of white trash around, but culturally, that’s basically what I am. I wear Pit Vipers unironically. I occasionally keep my shoes on in the house. I can get a tad lairy on nights out, I still love Funeral For A Friend’s debut album, and Nu Rave, and still sing along to Lady Sovereign. I’ll admit, I have read Heat magazine at least once, don’t mind Lambrini, and owning heavily depreciated German cars probably has some subconscious posturing of class ambiguity to it, even if the overarching theme is Moët taste on a Stella purchasing budget, if at least a Glenfiddich maintenance budget.

If I were to file for an adult passport (thanks, Dad), get it, and move over, I’d import the Boxster and IVA it with a set of right-hand-drive headlights for the correct beam pattern because I’m a romantic, and if I have a shot at keeping one big thing, that might as well be it. Obviously, I’d have to re-test for a manual licence considering Ontario doesn’t split automatic and manual licensing, but I’d want to do that anyway just to broaden opportunities. Beyond that, so long as I stay about 90 minutes from London, my cost of living would actually drop even after road tax and the hideous cost of insurance for new arrivals, and I do have extended family in Dorset and Sussex, so I wouldn’t exactly be alone.

Still, I reckon the plan for now is to visit more often. Not just for big events like Goodwood, but for both family and the everyday things. The people and landscapes and pubs and architecture and relatively moderate weather. The Festival of Speed is astounding, a true bucket-list event, yet a brief taste of Sussex has me convinced there’s so much more to see, do, and enjoy. Regardless, if you’re looking for a sign to book tickets for next year, consider this it. Goodwood? More like Greatwood.

(Top graphic image: Thomas Hundal)

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