GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED, 7-9 JULY 2006

by Lady

Vera (our forum admin) and I spent 3 days at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and it was FANTASTIC!!! Early Friday morning after arriving there we were greeted by the sounds of “God Save the Queen”, played by an F1 engine! We rushed to the sound, and discovered a very impressive structure right in front of the Goodwood House – Renault exhibition stand. They had the first and the last Renaults on the display, and at that particular moment Renault mechanics entertained the crowds with that little musical exercise.

We of course knew that Heikki should be at the Festival on Friday and Saturday, and we waited to find out if he really was there. He was!! He got in the car and left for the race track, we look some pictures in the process, and stayed behind to wait until he comes back. He came back maybe 30-40 minutes later, after burn-outs out on the track, and with the great noise. He really is a great entertainer! When he parked he revved an engine for a little while, and under the roof of that structure the sound really was deafening. We kept taking pictures )) He got out of the car and went to sign autographs, and really during those two days he spent maybe hours doing just that – signing autographs, posing for the pictures, talking to people!  I think everybody appreciated that he didn’t try to run away from the fans, although some of the “fans” were there purely on business, and it was obvious that some of the signed pictures could later be found on EBay. Total contrast with Giancarlo’s behaviour (he was there on Sunday). He wanted to run and hide inside the Renault truck, that’s why everybody started pushing and shoving, it was madness. If only he stayed for a little longer – there would be no need for the fights.

We kept coming back to the Renault area during those first two days of the Festival, and tried to take as many pictures as possible )) Funny enough, on Sunday we only went there twice – first when we got crushed under the crowds all wanting escaping Fisi’s autograph, and second time to pick up free newspapers that Renault published during all three days of the Festival. We wanted to check if we managed to make it to the Sunday edition as well as Saturday’s (that was Vera – the real star of the show)))) Not this time ))

In between visiting Renault area we managed to get autographs of loads of motor racing celebrities, such as Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill, Jackie Stewart, Stirling Moss, Mika Hakkinen, Marcus Gronholm, Mark Webber et al. I’ll write in more details in my story for the forum ;)

All in all we had fantastic time, seeing Heikki in and out of the car, I think we were there every time he had to drive the car )) Not stalking, not at all ))) It really is amazing how close we could get to a Formula 1 car, one could practically touch it )) There is no other place like Goodwood, and next year I’ll go again, for the whole three days!! Hopefully Heikki will make it there too!

PS. The pictures are HERE.