Well, this weekend was the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend as I had some other commitments (motoring ones, funnily enough, such as taking a look at an M3) but I thought as it’s such a classic event I should really give you all some information about it.

As Goodwood themselves say:

The Festival of Speed is far more than just a hillclimb – it is a celebration of the history of motor sport and can justifiably claim to be the world’s biggest and most diverse classic motor sports event. Taking place outside Goodwood House, using the main road through the Park as the track, it’s the only occasion where you’ll see in action the greatest competition cars and star drivers from the entire history of motor sport.

Famous drivers and riders have attended such as Sir Stirling Moss, Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Nigel Mansell, Mika Hakkinen, Johnny Herbert, Juan Pablo Montoya, Richard Petty, Carl Fogarty, Giacomo Agostini, Troy Corser, Troy Bayliss, Jean Alesi, Jacky Ickx, Marcus Gronholm, Petter Solberg, Hannu Mikkola and Alan Jones to name just a few. The Festival is an unrivalled social and sporting occasion in the motor racing calendar.

Ten Top Tips to get the most from the Festival of Speed:

From 25,000 visitors at the inaugural 1993 event, attendance at the Festival of Speed has grown to accommodate 150,000 visitors each year.

The Festival is supported by around 29 sponsors and associate sponsors, including more than fourteen car and motorcycle manufacturers, plus some of the biggest names in technology, lifestyle, publishing and luxury goods.

324 journalists and 210 photographers from 102 publications reported on the 2007 Festival of Speed.

Programmes and news items from 22 television stations and 12 radio stations worldwide broadcast before, during and after the 2007 Festival of Speed.

Press features on the Festival of Speed were reported in 28 different countries.

Over 200 cars took to the hill during the Festival of Speed in 2007, along with 45 road and racing motorcycles. In addition, more than 30 cars tackled the Forest Rally Stage and 40 cars took part in the Cartier Style et Luxe.

30 historic racing cars, worth a total of $25 million, were transported to the UK specifically to take part in the Festival of Speed in 2007. However, this doesn’t include the 5 Bugatti Type 41 Royales, originally built by Ettore Bugatti exclusively for Royalty and heads of state, which are estimated to be worth around $60million in total.

52,300 private cars parked at the venue during the course of the 2007 Festival; if lined up nose to tail, the ensuing traffic jam would stretch 148 miles.

Some 1400 marshals ensure the safety of both competitors and spectators.

Building the temporary hillclimb course takes around 2000 man hours of labour, and a further 1200 man hours to dismantle it again. At least as many man hours again are devoted to erecting the marquees and exhibition stands.

9.5km of protective straw bales have to be laid out, totalling some 4000 bales weighting 1400 tonnes - these are held in place by 5500 timber stakes which, if laid end to end, would stretch 11km.

More than 7km of temporary roadway is laid down in the park.

More than 2000 acres of grassland is mown over three months in preparation for the Festival of Speed.

At the 2007 Festival, 3000 catering staff served 59,000 sandwiches, 49,000 hot drinks, 58,000 pints of beer and 496 cases of wine. More than 1810 bottles of Veuve Clicquot champagne were drunk by visitors and guests, kept cool by 6.5 tonnes of ice.

To view the action film of the Goodwood FoS click here.

This is the second part of an article devoted to my trip to Knockhill’s Official Scottish Motor Show.  To read the first part click here.

So, what did the afternoon bring?  Well, quite a number of delights as it happens.  They included: a bird of prey demonstration, supercar versus superbike (the highlight of the show really), an air show with a biplane, cheerleaders, more car stunts, a Morgan parade, a lap for the winners of a competition in a Maserati and more cheerleaders!  So, let’s tackle these in order.

The birds of prey were in one tent, and quite menacing they were too.  Not as menacing as the Koenigsegg mind you – that car is supreme.  They weren’t sharing a tent, but for some reason one popped into my mind as I saw the other.  The display was actually quite good, but not enough to keep me engrossed.  That being the case, off I went back to the supercar tent to see an Aston Martin Volante, a Pagani Zonda (arguably one of the best looking cars around), a Spyker and even a James Bond DB4.  Classics all of them.

In terms of engineering, the Ariel Atom 3 (with a speed of 0-60 in less than 3 seconds) just amazes every time I see it.  I’m yet to have a go as it were, but it looks like a real blast.  It was a treat just seeing it again and made my mouth water even more to feel the force of that supercharged madness.

One of my favourite parts of the show was the bike versus car showdown (even the lady liked this bit, even if she wanted the bike to win).  This featured a superb bike rider – I think it may have been a Phil Giles but I’m waiting for confirmation of this – versus Gordon Shedden.  The bike rider had the excellent Honda Fireblade with 1,000 CC of power, whilst Shedden, of the BTCC, had a 750 BHP Subaru Impreza.  This uprated monster made one hell of a noise and was slightly delayed to the track.

The format of the race between the bike and the car had two sections.  First of all was a drag race, a simple race up the straight from the bottom of the Tri-Oval.  This would be driven three times, with the victor being the best of the three.  The next part of the race was the full track time.  Well, the drag race was superb with both the car and the bike giving it full beans and with some banter between.  Seeing the Fireblade pulling wheelies as it tried to tear from the line was superb – only matched by the raw aggression and noise of the hugely powerful Impreza.

Unfortunately, the car was simply too heavy to move off the line as quickly as the bike and so the bike won the drag.  However, on the actual lap the car took it, being a full second ahead.  Maybe things would have been a bit different after a few more attempts, but luckily Shedden managed to pull this one off and stopped when it was declared a draw.  It was fabulous entertainment and clearly it got the crowd going.

Sadly, there weren’t too many promotions girls to get snaps of, but as the next section of the entertainment was to be the cheerleaders at the Peugeot Hardie stand then perhaps I shouldn’t complain too much.  They were extremely good at what they did and managed to get the crowd worked up a bit – they had been surprisingly quiet most of the day!  Perhaps they were noisier on the Saturday.

Before the last show, I wanted to make sure I’d covered everything so I did a last full tour.  There I saw an actual F1 car driven by Alonso, as well as a Seat BTCC car that I wanted to have a sit in (but wasn’t allowed).  I also saw a rally car in bits - though this was on purpose.  The amount of engineering and parts involved is simply staggering.

The Morgan parade was simply fantastic.  If you love cars that look classic (even if they were only made a few years ago) then you would have taken a lot away from this.  The parade was led by the amazing looking AeroMax – frankly there aren’t many cars that look like this one alone, so to see it out on the track was a real treat.  Granted, I’d probably have gone for one of the older, more stylish Morgans if I was buying one, but each was special.  Not only that, but they made a fantastic noise as they went zipping around the track.

There was one lucky programme buyer – that’s for sure.  This winner was allowed to slot themselves into the incredibly posh Maserati Quattroporte (a beautiful saloon that fuses power, style and comfort) along with their guests and be shuttled around the track by Gordon Shedden.  I was extremely envious I must say as it would have been a great one for the photo album.

So, let’s sum up The Official Scottish Motor Show.

Good: Meeting Gordon Shedden, Being there for the official unveiling of the Koleos, getting a scoop on the Beira (that’s in another article), seeing the cheerleaders, being up close and personal with some of the fastest, meanest cars in the world.

Bad: Sometimes it wasn’t very clear where to actually go, the track parking was ample but the ‘road’ to get there was terrible, there weren’t enough pit girls, there definitely weren’t enough freebies going around.

Saturday the 10th and Sunday the 11th of May were sure to have been good ones up at Knockhill Racing Circuit in Scotland, not least because it was The Official Scottish Motor Show 2008.  Consequently, yours truly just had to be there for the launches, the goss and of course the track-day shenanigans that were sure to be had up North.

I was lucky enough to have secured tickets for the Sunday some time ago – the second day normally being a little quieter, or rather a little less packed.  Naturally I went through my checklist before starting off – did I have the tickets, the hotel reservation, enough oil, enough water, plenty of tread on the tyres and so forth?  All of this is worth checking before any long voyage.

Everything seemed to be in good working order so I picked up my lady friend and off we went.  Unfortunately, something always breaks down on a 300+ mile round trip, and this was no exception.  On the way there, many roads were broken down (seemingly the English and Scottish were trying to rebuild as many roads as possible on this weekend).

Not only that, but as soon as we got across the border the sunshine was gone and instead it was replaced by the most amazing fog along with lightning that seemed to rarely beyond 10 metres or so from the car.  Apart from this, my Vauxhall Astra was cruising the distance comfortably – if excessively hot.  I knew I should have paid the extra for the climate control…

Luckily, we managed to get to the hotel in our requisite pieces – in this case the Kirklands Hotel.  It is a very nice place to stay – both welcoming and friendly with a good array of true Scottish malts and real ales.  It’s also only about 25 minutes from the circuit and that was what the decision came down to really.

Unfortunately, on the Saturday night, something else decided to break down – me.  Your intrepid reporter spent the rest of the night shivering as I was wracked by the flu.  This got progressively worse and the next day I felt more like throwing up than being driven round Knockhill Race Track (known for a brilliant and tight hairpin tri-oval) in a Ferrari F430.  Nonetheless, for all the fans of Car Articles, rather than simply give up, I laboured on.  My lady was kind enough to go and find me some medicine and a short while after we were off to the track.

In case you’ve never been to Knockhill race circuit before, let me tell you right away that it’s not exactly on the trodden path.  All the better, perhaps, to remove the baffles and mufflers and tear away.  Not great however for parking.  The attendants were very friendly though and directed us up the requisite hill in order to park.  It was then that I wished I’d brought the clapped out old 4×4, parking on what was essentially a muddy, churned up field.  Oh well, I thought, if I’m stuck then there’s bound to be a tow somewhere.

Even just parking up, it was an amazing sight.  Every few cars would be something special – whether a tricked out Scooby or a well looked-after Triumph.  Even in the car park there were some Caterhams and Lotus’s.  We knew we were in the right place.  Sauntering down the track, we could see that already bombing about were some Lamborghinis and Ferraris.  Naturally I knew this was going to be a good day so I handed over the readies for a programme.  This is how the day shaped up:

The morning sessions consisted of a supercar track show, Paul Swift Stunt Show, Track Test Demonstrations, Challenger Tanks, the unveiling of the Renault Koleos, Terry Grant Stunts and Jet Pack Man.  This is what I’ll cover here and the afternoon will feature in Part 2.

It is possible to be (at times) underwhelmed by supercars.  By that I mean if you just sit at home and look at them in a magazine you might think after a while, ‘well these are nice, but you never see them do you?’  You certainly saw and heard them here – granted the Pagani Zonda and the Koenigsegg didn’t make it to the track but 2 Lotus Exiges, a Lamborghini Gallardo and 2 Ferraris did.

They screamed up the straight and it was amazing to see them doing what they were made to do – perform superbly on the track.  There was something there that I couldn’t identify as it happens (unusual for me) but it looked a bit like a Noble.  Whatever it was, it had some exhaust system as the noise from it was unreal.

The track test demonstrations were absolutely fantastic – not least because they were free.  As the weather was actually quite nice (if overcast) I thought I’d get my ticket for the new Saab 9-3 BioPower (one of the few places where this car has actually been shown in public).  It looked fantastic in the bright yellow paintwork whilst it proved yet again how good the BioPower technology is – the engine produces 20% more BHP and 15% more torque when running on E85 ethanol that’s obviously better for the environment.

Paul Swift is some driver and I state this as an absolute fact.  He’s one of the best stunt drivers I have ever seen and he’s a credit to the Ford Team.  At Knockhill he did a number of demonstrations including handbrake parking and cruising around the Hairpin Tri Oval on two wheels – with a few people on board including a man in the boot!  If you think you’re a good driver, go and see this guy.  Truly an entertaining and impressive performance.

The tank display was next and it was something I’d been keen to see.  There’s nothing quite like a weapon of war put on public display and so seeing the Challenger roar into life and start rumbling about was fearsome indeed.  The noise alone put war into a bit more perspective – as did the way the tank used a smoke screen before rolling over a few cars.  The strength (and apparently the weight) of the tank was such that it made the car seem tiny and pathetic.

It was at this point that my lady decided that she was cold and in need of a good cup of tea, so off she went.  This left me to explore all of the various manufacturer stands that were on offer – one of the biggest being the Renault show.  It just happened that in the ten minutes or so that I’d arrived they were due to launch the Koleos (an exclusive in the UK) so I knew I had to stick around.

As the tension mounted, I decided to hop into the Renault Clio 197 2008 – and I must say that tricked out with those lovely Recaro seats it is very impressive indeed.  The engine had a nice roar and the interior actually looked quite classy.  Who knows, it might well be my next car.  When I get a proper test drive I’ll give you guys more information.

So – the Koleos was launched.  Tragically, the crowd didn’t get all shouty –but then if you’ve seen the pictures then you’d know why.  Rather than something sleek and even dare I say it chic (come on, for all those yummy mummys who drive Chelsea Tractors this is just the thing) it is actually rather a boat.  Nonetheless, the boot space is amazing with everything from split folding to ski holders.  Renault has thought this one out.

Terry Grant and Jet Pack Man rounded off the morning’s entertainment – with the former being extremely good and doing some great speed work.  The latter however was a disappointment – whilst a man flying is always good, his being in the air for only a few seconds doesn’t really impress.

Watch out in the next few days for part 2 of the Scottish Motor Show coverage.