STORY AND PICS BY IAN GROAT: A PRIVILEGE TO TAKE PART IN THE 2013 GOODWOOD REVIVAL SHOW
This year’s 16th running of arguably the most spectacular retro racing event held in the world saw a full complement of around 60 champions, both current SBK hard chargers and a host of top riders from the history books, set to race at the former Goodwood Grand Prix track at Chichester’s World War 2 fighter aerodrome in the south of England earlier this month.
The aerodrome has now morphed into a wonderful racetrack under the watchful eyes of Lord Freddie and Charles March – ostensibly to celebrate motorsport’s past in its most glamorous era. The venue for the revival started up in 1998 and has gone on to become a world-renowned meeting consistently providing the world’s most spectacular racing theatre ever.
Held this year to sellout crowds of 150 000 visitors, all dressed up in period costume, with Spitfire and Mustang air shows thrown in, it was a mind-blowing experience second to none.
Inclement weather dished up some heavy downpours for each day’s 17-event programme, but the dedicated drivers and riders made the best of both dry and wet tarmac. The list of sports cars and single seaters which made up the various races like the Whitsun Trophy and Le Mans showpieces saw personalities such as Emanuele Pirro, Henry Pescarolo, Andy Wallace, Sir Stirling Moss, and F1 engineer Adrian Newey, among the list of celebrities who took part.
Tucked away in the programme, however, is the very challenging Barry Sheene Memorial Trophy Motorcycle Race that featured 60 riders and 30 teams on machines built and raced before 1961. In this year’s scintillating double header, the winner, Mick Grant and TT Ace Gary Johnson, rode the MV Agusta to clinch their win on aggregate time for the two-day racing event of some 36 laps on total. They won by less than a second from Michael Russell and Michael Rutter who simply rode the wheels off the Manx Norton they were on and showed the current speedsters of SBK how go about their business at riding both fast and with an aggressive style.
Third place on the combined classification went to Duncan Fitchett and Mainwaring on another Manx Norton – all just fractions of a second adrift of the winners. The race played out to vast crowds who cheered their teams on all the way.
Team Incomplete from South Africa, with veteran champions Jimmie Guthrie and Peter Labuschagne posted a mid-field finish in 16th spot. Peter had high hopes of a top-10 finish but incurred a 20-second penalty for missing the rider change board at the halfway mark, to lose two places.
“The track is ultra fast and hard to learn in just four laps of practice,” said Guthrie. “But to get an overall finish the first time around was a major achievement in the company of a crop of current TT winners and SBK British stars who headed up the field. The pace was electric all weekend, and the high-speed, period, 500cc Manx Norton machine provided by Tony Dunnel – who supplied Team Incomplete to race with – proved superb.
“We were absolutely overwhelmed by the support we received,” reckons Labuschagne – and in truth with names like Cameron Donald, Mick Grant and Australian Wayne Gardner, a multiple world champion to contend with, we had a great finish and a real wake-up call as to just how fast some of the leaders really are.”
That said, owner of Team Incomplete, Ian Groat, was upbeat about the event and thanked Lord March for the invitation to attend the huge event and participate in the Barry Sheene Memorial Trophy. “It’s a bit of a logistical nightmare to put it all together but all the effort proved truly worthwhile to participate in the ‘race of a lifetime’ at Goodwood this year.”
BARRY SHEENE MEMORIAL TROPHY COMBINED CLASSIFICATION RESULTS
1 Grant/Johnson
2 Russell/Rutter
3 Fitchett/Mainwaring
4 Child/Tonge
5 Williams/Woods
6 Barrier/Singer
7 Bai/Brogan
8 Donald/English
9 Ellis/Rhodes
10 Crew/Munsey
11 Murray/Reynolds
12 Richards/Russell
13 Farrall/Gutsch
14 Rosenthal/Scaysbrook
15 Smith/Smith
16 Guthrie/Labuschagne
17 Bunning/Dufus
18 Costello/Hoffman
19 Mortimer/Parrett
20 Oversby/Sharpe
21 Gardner/Notton
22 Day/Woodley
23 Cathcart/Jackson
24 Barfe/Simpson
25 Ashy/French
26 Bush/Hill
27 Clausen/Maier
28 Rushworth/Smart
29 Richards/Sheene
30 Hayden/Walker
