2007 Goodwood Festival of Speed: Endurance racers

Group C racers were one of the featured classes at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this week. To show they appreciated it, those legendary Le Mans prototype racers made a pretty good showing. Mazda's 787B was on display, but didn't run, sadly. Being the only non-piston and only Japanese vehicle to ever win Le Mans, the 4-rotor Mazda was one of the most significant vehicles on hand. But there were plenty of other cars that did run up the hill to the delight of the crowd. There was the Rothman's Porsche 956 and 962, and the Skoal Bandit 956B, the Aston Martin Nimrod and AMR1, the Silk Cut Jaguar XJR9 and XJR12, the Peugeot 905B, Allard J2XC (heard one chap call it a Caparo), Sauber-Mercedes C11, and the Nissan R90 to name several. But it wasn't just Group C that represented the endurance racers.

Goodwood fans got to see a 'Batmobile' BMW 3.0 CSL, the 'Baby' Porsche 935, and Lancia's Beta Montecarlo Group 5, LC1 and LC2. Can Am cars like Mark Donohue's Sunoco 917/30, a twin-turbo Toyota 7 (like the one in the central Toyota display by the house), and an ex-Andretti Ferrari 712 ran alongside a Chaparral 2J sucker car (when they turned on the snowmobile sucker motors, the rooster tail was about 100 feet long in the rain!), Howmet TX (very similar to the Chaparral 2F turbine car), Ferrari 330 P3, and Gulf Porsche 917K. One of our favorite categories at the FoS this year, we also got to see some fairly modern iron here like the Toyota GT-1, Radical SR9, Porsche RS Spyder and Le Mans-winning Audi R10. These and many others were also there to make it an over-the-top experience for us. There was even a bit of unintended excitement when veteran racer Derek Bell put a wheel off into the rain-soaked grass and snapped off part of the Gulf Mirage-Ford GR7. Whoops.

All photos © 2007 Frank Filipponio / Weblogs, Inc.