Goodwood Festival of Speed
Big Names..Big Action – Goodwood Festival of Speed
The Goodwood Festival of Speed, commonly abbreviated as FoS and referred within the United Kingdom as simply the Festival of Speed, is an annual hill climb featuring historic motor racing vehicles that is held in the grounds of Goodwood House, West Sussex, England.
Typically held in late June or early July, the event is scheduled to fit into the motor racing calendar to avoid a date clash with the Formula One season, enabling not just fans but many teams involved in current motor racing championships to attend. Visitors can expect to see cars and motorbikes from over 100 years of worldwide motor racing history climb the hill, including many of the latest F1 machines. Aside from the machines, the event attracts a host of names from the past and present of motor racing, offering a rare chance to see world-famous names driving a wide range of cars.
In its early years, several tens of thousands of visitors attended the Festival over the weekend; in recent times its popularity has grown to attracting daily crowds of around 100,000 visitors over the three days it is now held. The record was in 2003 when a crowd of 158,000 attended, before an advance-ticket-only admission policy came into force; but in 2005, attendance crept back to 150,000 and it is capped at this number today