Goodwood Festival of Speed 2016

[PeterW]

I'm thinking about going to the 2016 Goodwood FoS. Does anybody have any advice on what are the must dos, what to avoid, other experiences etc? Is there anything to choose between the Friday, Saturday, Sunday programmes? They look quite similar. What about the Thursday Moving Motor Show?
What I found on the forum already is that the super car parking is not good value.

Thanks for any thoughts.

Peter

[Pride]

Hi, Thursday's moving motor show is the best day if you enjoy wondering round the trade stands and watching/looking at all the new models on the market. You can also pre book test drives of them but you need to get there as soon as the gates open and then only target the cars you really want to experience as you'll be lucky to book more than 3 in the day. You can also usually get free complimentary passes from magazine and news paper promotions.

Friday starts getting serious with all the competing categories testing their cars up the hill and you also have the best chance of "blagging" your way into look at the Bonhams auction cars in the Goodwood house annex.

Saturday and Sunday are by far the busiest days so try to avoid trade stands as it's just a bun fight to see anything without pushing and shoving. I would strongly recommend a roving grandstand pass as the straw bales they now use are nearly half the size of a house and you tend to just see a roof flying past and not much else.

And yes, Supercar car parking is a waste of time because if you get there early enough anyway you will invariably park nearer to the entrance than what they have to give you anyway.

All in all, in my opinion, if you've never experienced Goodwood before you would need all four days to just about take it all in as there is so much to see from the forest rally stages right down trail bike exhibition riders and every form of transport in between.

[NSXGB]

Make your mind up and book soon, tickets will start getting scarce, especially for the grandstands.

[SILVER BULLET]

Hello Peter, my wife and I attend this event frequently and on all 4 days, you will certainly need more than one day to get the most out of your visit.The public car parks are fine in our experience. Thursday is a fairly quiet day by Goodwood standards but you do get to wander around with a lot more space than the other days, you can also make free use of the covered grandstands which you will have to pay for on the other days.The various paddocks are not always fully occupied on Thursday and some trade stands are also not fully functional.The hill is only in partial use on Thursday by the rolling roadshow, you will be able to get around the whole site which will help you plan your next days movements. This place is Petrol Head Heaven !
Friday,Saturday and Sunday get progresively busier with action on the hill and Rally stage plus other side shows. A great place to watch the hill action is at or just above Molecomb Corner. Previous years we have camped at Lakeside near Chichester but this year are trying Campsite E at Goodwood near the Race Circuit, we can walk or get a shuttle to the FOS site from there, we already have our entry tickets plus grandstand passes in case of too much sun or rain. Hope this helps,
Regards,

Ian

[WhyOne?]

Lot of good advice above, to which I would add, get there early. Unsurprisingly given the location of Goodwood house, the Sussex lanes (and the A27) start to struggle with the weight of traffic from about 8am onwards Fri, and particularly Saturday and Sunday. Also, getting through the gates as they open at 7am, gets you into the paddocks when they are quiet and there is much fettling going on in advance of the days action. If you haven't been to Goodwood before, you will be astonished how close you can get to the cars being prepared...and how much damage you can do to your hearing!

Sunday is different from the previous two days as they have over the last 2 years introduces the timed 'shoot-out' for the 20 cars recording the quickest times over the previous 2 days. This is a good thing as you see some cars moving seriously quickly up the hill, but as Sky are involved, broadcasting live, the schedule tends to get a little stilted to accommodate TV ad breaks etc.

[PeterW]

Thanks for all the great advice. It helps a lot.

Peter