Showing posts with label Goodwood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Goodwood. Show all posts
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Goodwood trackday cars
An Aston Vanquish of the same year as Kolo (2001| 51). Both aged well don't you think?
Eastbourne to Easebourne via Goodwood (pt3)
oh just to added a little bit...
on the way back home, back again through Goodwood, I thought I'd sneak a look-see at the Roller HQ. Nick Grimshaw designed I think. Anyway, armed with my trusty (Glasgow School of) Art Student ID, I thought I could wing it into the factory for free. Or at least with a discount. But no, not just to me and my card, but to all public. The Ghost you see. To make the mini RR, there was a big factory refit and extension being built, hard-hats etc. It was really because the Ghost hasn't been properly unvailed yet. Yes the 200EX is pretty much it, but Rolls Royce are a little bit, KG(B) with it all. Don't really know why, there was one in the caged off staff carpark. Sadly, my camera phone couldn't quite zoom in with any quality to get a picture, plus it was staff hometime and too many bods about, some with security uniforms too.
Oh well, next time maybe. I'll also go to the Goodwood Sculpture Park too, it's well worth the trip on it's own. Sadly time was against us today: we'd not let the munkies out of their hutch.
"Mr Splat Splats and Roopidoo will be very angry with us" mother said. She doesn't like to get on the wrong side of the bunnies, they poo on her sofa in protest when they're not pleased with her. Right then.
on the way back home, back again through Goodwood, I thought I'd sneak a look-see at the Roller HQ. Nick Grimshaw designed I think. Anyway, armed with my trusty (Glasgow School of) Art Student ID, I thought I could wing it into the factory for free. Or at least with a discount. But no, not just to me and my card, but to all public. The Ghost you see. To make the mini RR, there was a big factory refit and extension being built, hard-hats etc. It was really because the Ghost hasn't been properly unvailed yet. Yes the 200EX is pretty much it, but Rolls Royce are a little bit, KG(B) with it all. Don't really know why, there was one in the caged off staff carpark. Sadly, my camera phone couldn't quite zoom in with any quality to get a picture, plus it was staff hometime and too many bods about, some with security uniforms too.
Oh well, next time maybe. I'll also go to the Goodwood Sculpture Park too, it's well worth the trip on it's own. Sadly time was against us today: we'd not let the munkies out of their hutch.
"Mr Splat Splats and Roopidoo will be very angry with us" mother said. She doesn't like to get on the wrong side of the bunnies, they poo on her sofa in protest when they're not pleased with her. Right then.
Eastbourne to Easebourne via Goodwood (pt2)
...on then to the revival circuit at goodwood.
The Starbucks in Sainsbury's as it turned out, wasn't too far from where we wanted to stop off at. Well, I kinda knew but if traffic was going to be poor, then it would have been a pee-you-pants moment I'm sure. As it was, a free run pretty much up to the gates of the circuit, which very happily for me, were open.
Mother dear was more interested in the newspaper she'd just bought so she stayed in the Kolo. Kolo however was interested in going onto the track. This obviously wasn't going to happen, you have to book in advance and notify the insurance. Maybe next time, plus this was only meant to be a brief picture op and look about, not an all day thing.
Snapping away are the pits opposite and at the chicane, it was easy to forget time. Both the amount of it I was taking, plus what era I was in. S L Bartlett and I went to a Revival, in 2003 I think. It is well worth going to, the much talked about atmosphere and charm do exist and if you turn up in period clobber, then you can sometimes sneak your way into areas closer to the cars and the celebs. Plus the smell of oil and petrol, like your granddad's garage, is completely intoxicating.
Right, cliches all done, back to 2009. Oh, I would add one thing, Both the Goodwood Festival and the Revival are brilliant but they are different. I guess the best way to describe it is; the Festival is more static, it's all about looking at the famous and their fabulous, and fabulously rare and expensive, machines. Yes the sometimes go up a hill, but only once does a car flash pass and then they're gone, up the hill and behind some trees. The Revival is a moving thing; it's a complete race meeting from the mid 60's and if you want to see actual racing of these fabulous things, then this is more you. Plus the driver/owners really lose all sense of reality, if you want to see how a Lotus Eleven survives an off into a tyre-wall (and it doesn't) then go to Goodwood in early September.
So mother was still on the Audi, I was snapping away, and 5 lucky sods were circulating around the track in an odd mix of vehicles. There was a yellow pre-Audi-Lambo Diablo SV with a strange exhaust setup, 996 and 360 track day courtesy cars, then two real gems: a series1 E-type coupe in gunmetal grey and a rare DB4GT in almond green. There was a sixth car about, a late 60's 911 in a pale yellow, it only completed two laps before it retired with a smoking problem. Gasket of some kind I would guess, what would I know but normally, smoke: gasket, doesn't it?
Pictures of it all to come next post.
Opposite the main gated entrance, there is a narrow tunnel that goes under the track to the pit area and infield with it's grassed landing strip (circa WW2). Kolo and I were voting to go through and join the posh, mother with her 3 votes was against. She voted on behalf of my sister and Billy Piper, hmm. Still, I had my hour or more at the circuit. Mother got out and had a look around too, it was 10'c too much for her sadly but she did like what she saw, if Billy was here we could have stayed all day but as she wasn't, we couldn't, so...
...I'm not too sure whether a 'living with kolo' reader would be interested with the walk about in Midhurst and Easebourne but as I don't have any followers anyway, I might as well:
The drive was straight forward, up north for about ten minutes, or what felt like that. Past the Glorious horse racing track which semicircles itself around the top of a small valley, it really is an amazing location to see horses do what they do.
Then carrying on to Easebourne through Midhurst.
Easebourne's an odd place. a single shop, one petrol station and a school. Four pubs though, plus the church Ms Piper became Mrs Fox. Mother and I went it to see what all the fuss was about.
After exhausting the attractions Easebourne had to offer, we then went back though to Midhurst, which to be fair to Easebourne, is the actual town with which Easebourne now just seems to be an area of. We had another coffee and a lovely Sussex cream tea in a some cafe on the highstreet. Midhurst's main drag has a typical market town feel, very Hailsham but without the heroin problem. Almost trendy cool. Everyone but the teenaged girl who served us and myself are all retired here, just like Eastbourne then! After cake and a look in a couple of estate-agents' windows, we went into a charity shop. I looked at their books whilst mother looked at, er, trinkets? My book choices boiled down to two: how to read buildings & 100 years of motorsport, 1894-1994. Both £3 but I could only get one as they don't take cards. Cock. Well, I was reading Nigel Mansell's preface went we finally got back to mothers. (He knows shit all about architecture)
The Starbucks in Sainsbury's as it turned out, wasn't too far from where we wanted to stop off at. Well, I kinda knew but if traffic was going to be poor, then it would have been a pee-you-pants moment I'm sure. As it was, a free run pretty much up to the gates of the circuit, which very happily for me, were open.
Mother dear was more interested in the newspaper she'd just bought so she stayed in the Kolo. Kolo however was interested in going onto the track. This obviously wasn't going to happen, you have to book in advance and notify the insurance. Maybe next time, plus this was only meant to be a brief picture op and look about, not an all day thing.
Snapping away are the pits opposite and at the chicane, it was easy to forget time. Both the amount of it I was taking, plus what era I was in. S L Bartlett and I went to a Revival, in 2003 I think. It is well worth going to, the much talked about atmosphere and charm do exist and if you turn up in period clobber, then you can sometimes sneak your way into areas closer to the cars and the celebs. Plus the smell of oil and petrol, like your granddad's garage, is completely intoxicating.
Right, cliches all done, back to 2009. Oh, I would add one thing, Both the Goodwood Festival and the Revival are brilliant but they are different. I guess the best way to describe it is; the Festival is more static, it's all about looking at the famous and their fabulous, and fabulously rare and expensive, machines. Yes the sometimes go up a hill, but only once does a car flash pass and then they're gone, up the hill and behind some trees. The Revival is a moving thing; it's a complete race meeting from the mid 60's and if you want to see actual racing of these fabulous things, then this is more you. Plus the driver/owners really lose all sense of reality, if you want to see how a Lotus Eleven survives an off into a tyre-wall (and it doesn't) then go to Goodwood in early September.
So mother was still on the Audi, I was snapping away, and 5 lucky sods were circulating around the track in an odd mix of vehicles. There was a yellow pre-Audi-Lambo Diablo SV with a strange exhaust setup, 996 and 360 track day courtesy cars, then two real gems: a series1 E-type coupe in gunmetal grey and a rare DB4GT in almond green. There was a sixth car about, a late 60's 911 in a pale yellow, it only completed two laps before it retired with a smoking problem. Gasket of some kind I would guess, what would I know but normally, smoke: gasket, doesn't it?
Pictures of it all to come next post.
Opposite the main gated entrance, there is a narrow tunnel that goes under the track to the pit area and infield with it's grassed landing strip (circa WW2). Kolo and I were voting to go through and join the posh, mother with her 3 votes was against. She voted on behalf of my sister and Billy Piper, hmm. Still, I had my hour or more at the circuit. Mother got out and had a look around too, it was 10'c too much for her sadly but she did like what she saw, if Billy was here we could have stayed all day but as she wasn't, we couldn't, so...
...I'm not too sure whether a 'living with kolo' reader would be interested with the walk about in Midhurst and Easebourne but as I don't have any followers anyway, I might as well:
The drive was straight forward, up north for about ten minutes, or what felt like that. Past the Glorious horse racing track which semicircles itself around the top of a small valley, it really is an amazing location to see horses do what they do.
Then carrying on to Easebourne through Midhurst.
Easebourne's an odd place. a single shop, one petrol station and a school. Four pubs though, plus the church Ms Piper became Mrs Fox. Mother and I went it to see what all the fuss was about.
After exhausting the attractions Easebourne had to offer, we then went back though to Midhurst, which to be fair to Easebourne, is the actual town with which Easebourne now just seems to be an area of. We had another coffee and a lovely Sussex cream tea in a some cafe on the highstreet. Midhurst's main drag has a typical market town feel, very Hailsham but without the heroin problem. Almost trendy cool. Everyone but the teenaged girl who served us and myself are all retired here, just like Eastbourne then! After cake and a look in a couple of estate-agents' windows, we went into a charity shop. I looked at their books whilst mother looked at, er, trinkets? My book choices boiled down to two: how to read buildings & 100 years of motorsport, 1894-1994. Both £3 but I could only get one as they don't take cards. Cock. Well, I was reading Nigel Mansell's preface went we finally got back to mothers. (He knows shit all about architecture)
Monday, 6 July 2009
Eastbourne to Easebourne via Goodwood (pt1)
Eastbourne to Easebourne was a good excuse for a drive, going via Goodwood, a better one.
A month or so ago, maybe even two months ago, I took Mother dear to Easebourne. She had wanted to go ever since the village was mentioned on the news as the place Billy Piper married that bloke off Lewis. She was convinced that Billy would be there, hanging around Easebourne, doing whatever you do there (even though I thought she lived in North London). It would be nice to see Ms Piper, something to talk about at least; you know, the day we bumped in Billy Piper, 'er of the tele.
The trip started in the morning, a stop off at the Sussex County (hospital) in Brighton's Kemp town (mother's not a well bunny), then off to Goodwood, yay.
It was a good sign of the refined cruising ability of the A2 that Mother fell asleep just passed Worthing. She doesn't normally sleep when I drive, a parent thing I would hope rather than a statement about my driving. Kolo in fact was doing well at most things on the journey bar wind noise & buffeting when the windows or 'OpenSky' was, er, opened. The window buffeting was a true A2 flaw but the sunroof thing was my fault. I de-screened it of it's white cloth mesh, I later replaced the sliding section of it, which, what would you know, fixed the hair blasting.
It was a hot, hot day. A black car, a completely glass roof at midday, the AC on full. Even so, we had to stop and have an iced coffee and a break before getting to the circuit at Goodwood, yay. At this time, we had been in the car for about 2 plus hours (3 for me as I read a car magazine in Kolo whilst waiting at Brighton). Apart from the excessive brightness of the Sussex sunshine, it had been a good trip so far for both of us. Mother did however find the climate control too cold, then too warm changing it every 5 minutes or so from 19.0 to 19.5 to 20.0'c. Hmm, I thought, but then she is my mother, aren't they allowed to do things like that?
As we drank some strange Starbucks creation with muffins, we chatted about comparing Kolo with my Mother A2, which we belatedly called Heiki. there are a number of differences between the two Audis. Firstly, kolo's a tuned 3 cylinder diesel & her's a standard inline 4 petrol, but both 1.4. Heiki, which is now my sister's, is just eligable for the government's Scrappage Scheme. Although it's a X-plate, 1999 car, it has fared well over the decade. We then reminisced over the time we first got her A2.
Having habitually read motoring publications of one type or another since I was a preteen, I was aware that in 1999, mother was making a big mistake trading her 4-year-old VW Sharan for a postman Pat red Merc A-class. Luckily, before she completely commited to buy Pat's van, we drive down to Hailsham where a new Audi dealership had just opened. In the centre of a three car display was Heiki. we went to Hailsham on a whim, just like today (that day) to see if an A2 was even available yet in the UK. But there one was, the first outside London apparently. She was impressed, and why wouldn't she be, the interior design and quality, the Avus Blue metallic paintwork on a TTesque 5-door with all the trimmings: every single option bar OpenSky (Nekarsulm where having a couple of issues with that still), but is was just so much better than anything thing we have ever had. It was so far beyond the A-class that car-innocent Mother thought it would be 50% more money than the red toy merc, but it was only £500 or so more than the base spec A120 or whatever it was, which had nothing! (This is Mercedes base spec remember, they only just started to include the radio in the late 80's) The gulf between the two potential dawsonmobiles was truly huge. Me had to wait awhile to get Heiki, (s)he was meant to be the dealership's demonstrator for at least six months. luckily, mother got that down to 3 weeks. I mean, what better demonstration than the A2 driving around town for everyone to see rather than the 2 mile radius from the dealership as a ploddy test-driver, was the route mother's argument took. Brilliant.
At the time of this, back then, I was myself driving a (Rover) Mini cooper, black with an off-white roof, Cooper bonnet stripes and those 13" alloys with the large sportpack arches. But it was in Heiki that everyone would stare at us. Mother would get asked what was it and how strange and weird it is. She now says how very off putting it all was, 'now all the cars are copying the A2!' I can see her point too, well not all cars, just some maybe and in detail. We're not talking Chinese car industry copying just, well, hinting maybe.
Rest break over, back onto the road...
A month or so ago, maybe even two months ago, I took Mother dear to Easebourne. She had wanted to go ever since the village was mentioned on the news as the place Billy Piper married that bloke off Lewis. She was convinced that Billy would be there, hanging around Easebourne, doing whatever you do there (even though I thought she lived in North London). It would be nice to see Ms Piper, something to talk about at least; you know, the day we bumped in Billy Piper, 'er of the tele.
The trip started in the morning, a stop off at the Sussex County (hospital) in Brighton's Kemp town (mother's not a well bunny), then off to Goodwood, yay.
It was a good sign of the refined cruising ability of the A2 that Mother fell asleep just passed Worthing. She doesn't normally sleep when I drive, a parent thing I would hope rather than a statement about my driving. Kolo in fact was doing well at most things on the journey bar wind noise & buffeting when the windows or 'OpenSky' was, er, opened. The window buffeting was a true A2 flaw but the sunroof thing was my fault. I de-screened it of it's white cloth mesh, I later replaced the sliding section of it, which, what would you know, fixed the hair blasting.
It was a hot, hot day. A black car, a completely glass roof at midday, the AC on full. Even so, we had to stop and have an iced coffee and a break before getting to the circuit at Goodwood, yay. At this time, we had been in the car for about 2 plus hours (3 for me as I read a car magazine in Kolo whilst waiting at Brighton). Apart from the excessive brightness of the Sussex sunshine, it had been a good trip so far for both of us. Mother did however find the climate control too cold, then too warm changing it every 5 minutes or so from 19.0 to 19.5 to 20.0'c. Hmm, I thought, but then she is my mother, aren't they allowed to do things like that?
As we drank some strange Starbucks creation with muffins, we chatted about comparing Kolo with my Mother A2, which we belatedly called Heiki. there are a number of differences between the two Audis. Firstly, kolo's a tuned 3 cylinder diesel & her's a standard inline 4 petrol, but both 1.4. Heiki, which is now my sister's, is just eligable for the government's Scrappage Scheme. Although it's a X-plate, 1999 car, it has fared well over the decade. We then reminisced over the time we first got her A2.
Having habitually read motoring publications of one type or another since I was a preteen, I was aware that in 1999, mother was making a big mistake trading her 4-year-old VW Sharan for a postman Pat red Merc A-class. Luckily, before she completely commited to buy Pat's van, we drive down to Hailsham where a new Audi dealership had just opened. In the centre of a three car display was Heiki. we went to Hailsham on a whim, just like today (that day) to see if an A2 was even available yet in the UK. But there one was, the first outside London apparently. She was impressed, and why wouldn't she be, the interior design and quality, the Avus Blue metallic paintwork on a TTesque 5-door with all the trimmings: every single option bar OpenSky (Nekarsulm where having a couple of issues with that still), but is was just so much better than anything thing we have ever had. It was so far beyond the A-class that car-innocent Mother thought it would be 50% more money than the red toy merc, but it was only £500 or so more than the base spec A120 or whatever it was, which had nothing! (This is Mercedes base spec remember, they only just started to include the radio in the late 80's) The gulf between the two potential dawsonmobiles was truly huge. Me had to wait awhile to get Heiki, (s)he was meant to be the dealership's demonstrator for at least six months. luckily, mother got that down to 3 weeks. I mean, what better demonstration than the A2 driving around town for everyone to see rather than the 2 mile radius from the dealership as a ploddy test-driver, was the route mother's argument took. Brilliant.
At the time of this, back then, I was myself driving a (Rover) Mini cooper, black with an off-white roof, Cooper bonnet stripes and those 13" alloys with the large sportpack arches. But it was in Heiki that everyone would stare at us. Mother would get asked what was it and how strange and weird it is. She now says how very off putting it all was, 'now all the cars are copying the A2!' I can see her point too, well not all cars, just some maybe and in detail. We're not talking Chinese car industry copying just, well, hinting maybe.
Rest break over, back onto the road...
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