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The 6 Best (and Worst) Speed Runs at Goodwood This Year
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- The 6 Best (and Worst) Speed Runs at Goodwood This Year
(Bob McCaffrey)
Goodwood Festival of Speed is an annual summer delight for any petrolhead. The four-day spectacular, held at the Duke of Richmond's 12,000-acre estate in the English countryside, is a chance for manufacturers and race teams alike to show off deafening cars from yesteryear ( V10-era Formula One eargasm, anyone?), modern production cars, motorcycles, and more. If it's got an engine and wheels, someone's likely sent it up the 1.16-mile hill.
Some runs are simply for demonstration, others —as part of the FoS Shootout—are timed. As you'd expect, there are astounding moments of blistering speed and impeccable car control. There are, of course, ample crashes. And, given the multitude of cameras and a live broadcast, the best and worst drives are captured for posterity. Let's run through a few of each.
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1) Ford's SuperVan 4.2 Wins Fastest Overall Run
Two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Romain Dumas piloted this all-electric Ford SuperVan 4.2 up the hill. Dumas has priorly nabbed top of the Shootout podium twice and his run during the 2024 FoS gave him the hat trick, clinching the timed run record in a staggering 43.98 seconds. Around the 20-second mark in the below video, check out how busy the French driver's hands are working to keep this 1,400-horsepower (rumors put it closer to 2,000-hp) van planted. Dumas narrowly edged out Scott Speed piloting a custom-built 680-horsepower Subaru, dubbed Project Midnight, who dashed up the hill in 46.07 seconds.
2) Czinger 21C Nabs Fastest Production Car Run
This 3D-printed hypercar generates an impressive 1,350 horsepower—with 950 ponies coming from a 2.9-liter twin-turbo flat-plane crank V8—and another 400 horses from a trio of electric motors. And it only weighs a shade under 2,900 pounds. Accordingly, the naught-to-sixty sprint happens in under 1.9 seconds. Perhaps it's unsurprising then that it won the fastest production car slot up Goodwood's hill. Though, early in the run, at the :16 mark of the below video, the driver dips a wheel into the grass and there's a pronounced shimmy as the car is wrestled back onto the line.
3) Fernando Alonso's Protracted Burnout in the Aston Martin Valiant
The Aston Martin F1 driver effectively commissioned this $2.5 million supercar from the British marque when the Spanish racing champion suggested to engineers that they make a more hardcore variant of the already-hardcore V12 Valour . So it's only fitting that the first public showing of the Valiant in motion was piloted by none other than Alonso himself. This was a demonstration run, so it's not timed, meaning Alonso can have a little more fun. Case in point: his five-second burnout off the line. His passenger, an F1 presenter for Sky TV, looks suitably scared and thrilled, only amplifying the grin that won't leave Alonso's face every time the camera cuts to in-car footage. Add in that brilliant V12 exhaust note, and this run is a hoot to watch.
4) The 104-year-old Beast of Turin Sliding in the Rain is Anxiety-Inducing
What happens when a 1910-built Fiat S76, which boasts a whopping 290-horsepower and 2,000 lb-ft of torque (generated from a 28.4-liter mill) and its narrow tires meet rain slicked asphalt? Your pulse quickens with every slide—and there are several. This vehicle, nicknamed The Best of Turin, was built to clinch the land speed record and managed a 132.27 mph run during one leg of the speed attempt back in 1913, though it failed to replicate the result on the return run. Still, that's lightening for the era. Watch it spit flame, snort and slide up below.
5) The Lotus Evija X Crashes Seconds After Leaving the Starting Line
Fastest Goodwood FoS crash ever? The 2,000-horsepower, all-electric Lotus Evija X race car made it mere feet off the starting line before smashing its prow into a hay barrier . The entire run lasted a scant 1.5 seconds. Jump to 1:01 in the below video to watch footage from the front of the Evija, purpose-built to tackle the record at the Nordschleife. What went wrong? Lotus later shared that the driver, who has not been named, turned off traction control. When all 1,257 lb-ft of twist hit the wheels, the rears were spinning in excess of 170 miles an hour while the front were turning at 150. After counter-steering, then lifting off the throttle to settle the Evija, the front end bit—shooting it directly into the hay. Yikes.
6) Travis Pastrana Bins an 860HP Subaru GL Wagon
Goodwood's Molecomb corner is notorious for taking out professional drivers. Why? It's a 90 degree left-hander which arrives after being flat out moments before. Add in dips and bumps in the asphalt there, and Molecomb will send anyone into the hay bales in a shower of carbon fiber shards. One such victim was Travis Pastrana, piloting a 1983 Subaru GL wagon, custom-made for a Hoonigan Gymkhana video, boasting 860 horsepower. You can watch Pastrana having fun over repeated runs during the course of the FoS until you get to 6:15 in the video below, which is when the carnage happens.
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