DirtFish staff writer Josie Rimmer experienced her first Goodwood Festival of Speed last week. It’s fair to say it left quite the impression on her:
As they say in the UK, it was petrolhead heaven. Every corner turned yielded a fresh surprise that left me first, drooling. Then with the overwhelming desire to get in the drivers’ seat and feel whichever car’s roar myself.
I spent plenty of time carting up and down the hill, roaming between the rally stage and the base of the hillclimb. Drooling at classic Cosworths and Lancias and hopping in and out of the car with Max McRae and Jess Gwynne, celebrity sightings were vast and firework shows were frequent.
But for me, that wasn’t all that Goodwood was about.
For me, Goodwood was about family. And what connects us.
I got to see my brother screaming up the hill in the Audi Quattro, hands a little shaky from the speed. I got to see my dad running towards James once he parked, being the first to break into the ‘driver’s only’ area to open his car door and yell “you did it!”
I got to sit under Ian and Sylviane Gwynne’s motorhome awning in the pouring rain and got to share meals and talk big plans with Calum and Ruary Macleod. These are people I’ve known my whole life. Ian and Jess taught me to drive a manual when I was 10 years old (it wasn’t wildly successful, but it happened), and Callum taught me to do donuts at DirtFish when I was 12 (he got the fun job).
And my dad and brother? Well, I got to watch them in their happy place.
I got to watch Alister and Max McRae in a shockingly fast state of Zen, then watched them compare notes (and times). I watched a fan cry at the sight of Colin McRae’s Ford Focus, rebuilt from a pile of metal. Family.
I made some new family, too. The BGM team answered every tech question I could’ve had – no matter how basic. I watched them take care of each other. I watched them take care of James and my dad.
In front of my eyes, I watched impossible things become possible thanks to the graceful grit of the team.
For me, it was about the pride. In the team, in the cars, in the people driving them. Of course, Goodwood was beautiful and shiny and put on a hell of a show – and I’m already planning my flights for next year.
And for me, for my first time at the glorious petrolhead heaven, I was reminded of the reason we do what we do at DirtFish and in rally – we love it. We’re mad for it. And it gives us a family. Perhaps one we already had, perhaps one we were gifted by dirt.
