Remembering Goodwood’s heroes at 78th Members' Meeting

More akin to school sports days than the Olympics in Goodwood’s first heyday – from the first in August 1949 to the 71st in July 1966, after which it closed to racing – the British Automobile Racing Club’s second-tier Members’ Meetings contrasted with the international events, being aimed at enthusiastic amateurs rather than established racers.

Many competitors went on to far greater things, but for a great many weekend warriors they provided fun in cars driven to the Duke of Richmond & Gordon’s motor circuit on the fringes of historic Chichester, 80 miles south-west of London.

Elements of the ‘run-what-you-brought’ – it’s too classy a heritage for the Americanised ‘run-what-ya-brung’! – remain in the Goodwood Road Racing Club’s 78th MM, which takes place a year and a half late this weekend. The sequence – which continued in 2014 with the 72nd MM, almost 48 years after the final contemporary event – was interrupted by COVID-19 last spring, but it’s back with a vengeance.

There are more Le Mans winners than aspiring successors on the register this time as teams from Aubigny, Darnley, Methuen and Torbolton houses go head-to-head on and off track. In an impressive roll call, Richard Attwood, David Brabham, Neel Jani, Tom Kristensen, Andre Lotterer, Emanuele Pirro, Guy Smith and Benoit Treluyer are competing in Saturday’s Pierpoint Cup V8 saloon thrash. TK, Lotterer and Pirro return to saddle Ford GT40s in Sunday’s Gurney Cup sportscar event.

Like the enormous Revival’s racecard, the MM’s is a revolving history book, with a subtle twist. It features cars from 1905-23 in the SF Edge Edwardian showcase to 1982 in the Gerry Marshall Trophy Group 1 saloon contest, in which Saturday’s two full grids will be whittled down to one for Sunday’s final. The Earl Howe Trophy race revisits the two-seater Grand Prix cars and Voiturettes up to 1932.

The strongest 500cc Formula 3 field since Goodwood’s last bugle call remembers Don Parker, one of the post-Second World War motorcycle-engined category’s standout drivers. Parker did his early winning in his take on a Kieft-Norton, but among the favourites will be a Cooper-Norton Mk9 owned in period by another triple Autosport British champion, Jim Russell. Tom Waterfield, 23, a Vintage Sports-Car Club star with racing ambitions, drives it for Tim Ross, and has already won at Cadwell Park and Castle Combe this season.

The Goodwood Members' Meeting returns for the first time since 2019

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Formula Junior honours ‘king’ Peter Arundell and embraces a wonderful miscellany of chassis. Peter de la Roche and Andrew Hibberd renew their recent Revival rivalry, this time with engines behind them in Lola Mk3 and ex-Arundell Lotus 22 respectively, but Alex Ames arrives fresh from a fine victory at Spa.

The Ronnie Hoare Trophy for 1960-66 roadgoing and sports GT cars is most redolent of the original Members’ Meetings, although those who witnessed them won’t recall seeing a trio of Porsche 904 GTSs or 911s, while Ferrari 275 GTB/C and Abarth-Simca 2000 look exotic in the mix. AC Aces, MGBs, Triumph TRs and TVR Granturas have a ring to them, while Keith Ahlers’s Morgan Plus 4 SLR will slay giants in Billy Bellinger’s hands.

Earlier GTs of the 1958-62 TT era form the Stirling Moss Trophy pack in which Aston Martin DB4 GTs, Austin-Healey 3000s and Ferrari 250 Berlinettas square up to a posse of wire-wheeled Jaguar E-type roadsters.
Sports-racers of the preceding era chase Salvadori Cup gold. American Scarab and Canadian Sadler-Chevrolets take on Tojeiros and Jaguar D-types, plus XK-engined independents, with two-litre Lotus 15s and Cooper Monacos looking to score on handling rather than power.

Ford GT40s and Lotus 30s should have the legs on Elvas and Lotus 23s in the Gurney Cup race, but the Mitchell brothers, Ben and Sam, are dark horses in dad Westie’s left-hand-drive Chevron-BMW B8, an example of Derek Bennett’s design genius.

Daily demonstrations feature design legend Gordon Murray’s brainchildren, including his 750 Formula car via Brabham BT44 to Dario Franchitti driving the new T50 on its public debut, the cars of Ayrton Senna, and 14 of the 52 Jaguar XJR-15s built by Tom Walkinshaw Racing. There’s also a two-part Super Special Rally Sprint on Saturday evening and Sunday morning.

Gerry Marshall Trophy (Races 1, 2 & 15)

Gerry Marshall was the ultimate showman on the UK motorsport scene and competed until his death in 2005

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British racing’s greatest showman (1941-2005) raced a Lotus Elan at Goodwood in 1966, and starred in early Revivals. Gerry’s panache lives on in enthusiasts’ memories, but he was still a force in the pre-1983 Group 1 era covered in his races. Chevrolet Camaros, Boss Mustangs, Ford Capris and Escorts, Triumph Dolomite Sprints, BMW, Volkswagens and Minis – where Marshall started in the mid 1960s – grace the pack, amid which son Gregor proudly competes in his beloved Vauxhall Firenza ‘droopsnoot’.

PLUS: How the Marshall club racing dynasty remains intact

SF Edge Trophy (R3 & 14)

Born in Australia, Selwyn Francis Edge (1868-1940) moved to England and was a cycle racer in his youth. An astute businessman, Edge went into partnership with pioneering motorist Charles Jarrott, importing French De Dion Bouton and Clement-Panhard cars. Edge developed and raced Napiers, winning the 1902 Gordon Bennett prize. Five years later he covered 1581 miles in 24 hours at Hugh Locke King’s new Brooklands track. He outlived the circuit’s pre-Second World War heyday, from which the races’ cars are drawn.

Pierpoint Cup (R4)

Pierpoint Cup, Goodwood

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Born in May 1929, four months before Stirling Moss, Roy Pierpoint is one of few surviving competitors from Goodwood’s inaugural (British Automobile Racing Club) Members’ Meeting on 13 August 1949. Pierpoint raced his self-built Fiat Special in a short dash on the former RAF Westhampnett aerodrome’s perimeter track that day, but became synonymous with powerful sports and saloon cars. He was British Saloon Car champion in 1965, in Alan Mann Racing’s Ford Mustang, a model dominant in the 78th MM’s American V8 tin-top showcase.

Arundell Cup (R5)

Peter Arundell (1933-2009) was the king of Formula Junior. Boxing Day 1959’s Brands Hatch winner in an Elva-DKW 100, Arundell repeated in the category’s last major race there in September 1963. He dominated the 1962 and 1963 British championships in Team Lotus’s 22 and 27 models, and won the Monaco GP-supporting race in 1961 and 1962. Arundell graduated to F1 in 1964, finishing third at Monaco and Zandvoort, before being seriously injured in an F2 accident at Reims.

Hailwood Trophy (R6)

Mike Hailwood (1940-81) won nine 250cc, 350cc and 500cc motorcycle world championships from 1961-67. A brilliant competitor, with a huge fan following, Hailwood followed his friend John Surtees into cars in 1963, completing a season with Reg Parnell’s F1 equipe in 1964, but it wasn’t until he joined Team Surtees that results came. Mike won the 1972 European F2 title and F5000 races, but his best frontline F1 finish was second to Emerson Fittipaldi in the 1972 Italian GP.

Don Parker Trophy (R7)

Don Parker

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Whippet-slim Don Parker (1908-97) was a late starter who won his first race aged 40, then landed British 500c F3 championships in 1952 and 1953 with his Kieft-derived ‘Parker Special’, and 1959 with a Cooper. South London-based Parker enjoyed some epic scraps with the likes of Jim Russell (another triple champ), Ivor Bueb and Les Leston along the way. On his retirement from racing, Parker manufactured the ‘Drivon’ range of racing car trailers.

Ronnie Hoare Trophy (R8)

Brooklands MG racer Colonel Ronnie Hoare (1913-89) was the elegant and charismatic head of Bournemouth Ford dealer F English Ltd when in 1959 he formed Maranello Concessionaires to represent Ferrari in the UK. Its racing team debuted in 1961, with distinctive Cambridge blue detailing adorning its immaculate scarlet cars. The Colonel’s proudest moments at Goodwood came when Graham Hill won the 1963 and 1964 Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy races driving his Ferrari 250 GTO and 330 P.

Earl Howe Trophy (R9)

The fifth Earl Howe (1884-1964) made his race debut as Francis Curzon – serving Member of Parliament for Battersea – driving a Bugatti T43 in the 1928 Irish TT. Having inherited his father’s title, he was elected as the BRDC’s first president in 1929 and within two years had won Le Mans, sharing his Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 with Sir Henry Birkin. The Bugatti fan also flew ERA’s flag internationally, winning the 1938 Grosvenor Grand Prix – a handicap race – in Cape Town aboard R8C.

Gurney Cup (R10)

Dan Gurney, Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, Goodwood 1964

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Genial giant Dan Gurney (1931-2018) was a serial high achiever, as driver, team leader and pioneering car constructor. Gurney made his F1 debut for Ferrari in 1959 and won four world championship GPs, from the French at Rouen in 1962 (Porsche) to the Belgian at Spa in 1967 (AAR Eagle-Weslake). The first racer to win in sportscars, F1, NASCAR and Indycars, Gurney topped the GT class in a Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe at Goodwood in 1964 (above) and won Le Mans (Ford MkIV) in 1967.

PLUS: Remembering the greatest American in racing history

Salvadori Cup (R11)

Roy Salvadori (1922-2012) famously won the 1959 Le Mans 24 Hours – with Carroll Shelby – for Aston Martin, having finished fourth in the 1958 F1 world championship, behind Mike Hawthorn, Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks in a British Racing Greenwash. Salvadori’s versatility was legendary. At Goodwood on Easter Monday 1955, he won the Richmond Trophy F1 (Maserati 250F), Lavant Cup F2 (Connaught) and sportscar race (Aston Martin DB3S). ‘Salvo’ also aced Members’ Meeting sportscar events.

Moss Trophy (R12)

Every Goodwood race meeting should be honour-bound to remember Stirling Moss (1929-2020), its most famous son. From his 30-second victory in the three-lap 500cc race on 18 September 1948, the day after his 19th birthday, to four successive RAC Tourist Trophy Races from 1958-61 (1960 below) – in Aston Martin DBR1s and Ferrari 250 GT Berlinettas – the maestro’s record was unparalleled over the motor circuit’s contemporary era, which ended for him on Easter Monday 1962, four years before it’s 71st MM swansong.

Stirling Moss, RAC Tourist Trophy, Goodwood 1960

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