Goodwood Festival Of Speed: Through My Lens
Goodwood FOS

The Goodwood Festival of Speed is one of those events that I first heard about as a kid.

Every year I’d see all the awesome photos and videos from the event, and it would make me insanely jealous. The cars, the culture, and of course the people – attending the Festival of Speed has been on my bucket list for a very long time.

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Unfortunately for me though, the event has always seemed to land on the same weekend as the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, which means I was yet to tick it off my list. However, this year the stars aligned – PPIHC and FOS were one weekend apart.

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I went from the greatest hill climb in the world to the most glamorous hill climb and motoring festival in the world.

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To see in person the vehicles that I’d only seen in pictures and print for my whole life was a dream come true.

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The cherry on the top was the fact that they were being pushed to their limits on what is essentially a street/mountain road course that also happens to be a driveway.

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It really opened my eyes to a lot of things. For example, I had no idea that Europeans liked NASCAR.

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The Ferrari presence was absolutely massive due to the 70th anniversary celebrations. There was a sea of beautiful red machines all around the paddock.

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Paddy and Jordan absolutely killed it with their findings from this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, so there’s little point in me repeating the narrative.

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Instead, I’m just going to share with you my favorite photos from the event, Through My Lens style, with a few comments added here and there. Enjoy!

Open Wheel Burnouts
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Safety car burnout? Why not!

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For 2017, the Festival of Speed had a drift invasion with six drivers from all over the world coming to put on an amazing show. Not pictured is Mad Mike Whiddett, the man responsible for introducing the sport of drifting to the hill climb.

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James Deane threading the needle next to the Flint Wall. One little mistake could end in disaster; just look how close he was cutting it to the straw barriers.

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For many people it was the first time they had ever seen drifting in person. I’m pretty sure the tandem donuts blew everyone’s minds.

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It was so much fun for me to check out the old liveries and textures found on these old race cars.

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The teal and blue colors of a Falken drift car ripping up the front of Lord March’s driveway – who would have ever thought.

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This IMSA Audi S4 GTO was definitely one of my favorites. I never had a chance to see something like this race, so it was such a treat to hear it power up the hill spitting flames the whole way.

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Chris Forsberg and all of the other drifters had a chance to go to the Goodwood ball, which I was super jealous of. Maybe one year…

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I was really surprised that more people didn’t take advantage of the empty paddock after the racing had stopped; it seems as though everyone just leaves during the best light. I guess I shouldn’t complain as it allowed me to get some clear shots.

This guy also took advantage of the solitude. What a cool drawing.

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It seemed so crazy that I had just shot this car at Luftgekühlt 4, and here it was at the Goodwood Estate.

Circle Burners
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This is one of the main reasons why I loved the Festival of Speed. Seeing drift cars, that are fairly new-age in terms of motorsports, parked next to legendary rally and race cars just blew my mind.

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That’s one way to smoke out the entire starting line.

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‘Hello? Sorry, I can’t hear you over all the awesomeness going on.’

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I never had a chance to see the legendary Colin McRae drive in real life, but I am glad to at least see his legacy continue thanks to those who look after his old race machines.

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Believe it or not, but to this day I have still not shot an F1 race. While a few of the other Speedhunters have, I just haven’t had the time in recent years to check one out. I think shooting Goodwood has satisfied me for a few more years though…

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It was cool to see the new Ford GT running up the hill. How good does this thing look in yellow?

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I was amazed to see how many people it took just to support a single F1 car, and they were only making exhibition runs.

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I’m so glad to see that drifting has made such a huge impact at this world class motoring event. What’s next – drift cars on the Pebble Beach lawn? I don’t think it will happen in my lifetime, but you never know.

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I only shot two days of hill climb action as I headed straight to the Gumball 3000 rally, so stay tuned for coverage on that. With the Festival of Speed ticked off my bucket list, next up is the Goodwood Revival. Hopefully I can achieve that one sooner rather than later.

Larry Chen
Instagram: larry_chen_foto
larry@speedhunters.com

Cutting Room Floor
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Comments



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37 comments

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1

Awesome, start to finish. Well done.

P.S. Who's the REALLY really old guy pictured?

2

bernie ecclestone, used to run F1.

3
Spanky Mc Lugnuts

Toupeey Mc Toupeehead

4

Chris Forsberg.

Author5

Legendary drifter and F1 owner.

6

LMFAO Nice one Paddy!!!

7

absolutely awsome shots!!! love it

8

So many potential wallpapers! Love it! :D
While on the topic of wallpapers, just want to throw it out there for the hearing ears, it would be so cool if more feature car photos would include a direct shot from the dashboard of the car. You know, for the office rats that is one way to imagine you are sitting behind a wheel of a cool car, not the desk of your cubical :D I have already a small collection of M4, couple of NSX`s, Porsche dashboards, very cool desktops! :)

Larry, btw, is there also going to be Gumball through your lens? Saw you joined the trip right after Goodwood.

Author9

I am going to try my best to push out at least one article.

10

Thanks for the reply, Larry! Looking forward to Gumball article. Took some smartphone pictures in Riga before they set off, would like to see some proper photography though! :)
P.S. hope you have a shot with that Lancia 037

11

Thank you guys for adding phone wallpaper framed shots to the collections!
As always, amazing shots.
I managed to get to FOS and tick it off this year too - what a raw experience, and one I would recommend to any petrol lover!

12

That first photo...I am just drooling like mad internally. I have always adored the McLaren F1 since childhood. I remember firing up Need For Speed II for the first time and seeing it on the car select screen...it was love at first sight. Ever since then, it's been my favorite car of all time. I remember telling my mom that I wanted to own one when I grew up. Of course, I was only about 6 years old at the time and had no idea how rare or expensive the F1 was.

13

Timeless… It's hard to believe this masterpiece is over 25yrs old! One of the first 'hypercars'

Author14

Yeah, I still don't get tired of seeing them in person.

15

Stunning shots Larry!

16

The artist, is Stefan Marjoram, I have some of his watercolour works on my wall, amazing stuff.

Author17

He was super talented.

18

Nice shots! this is the "cherry of the cake" of what Paddy and Jordan already showed.. awesome pictures of all of you.

by the way, I´ve noticed a silghtly change on your photos editing, somewhat a cold tint or a cold darker tone.. am i right?

Author19

You mean from Goodwood? I think the mood was a big cooler anyways, I shot many of these during blue hour.

20

Larry, I really like the angle of your lens. Not nice, but beatiful shots. I mean, there wasn't a single picture on speedhunters that I wouldn't like, but these together with the Mountain Peak really are above all else.

Author21

Thank you!

22

Larry, you beautiful magical creature you. Between your goodwood and pikes peak photos I'm blown away! Raised the bar another notch.

Author23

Thank you so much for the kind words. I appreciate the support.

24
Joachim Taverne

So that was indeed you that I spotted during one of the live (taking pictures from the top of hay bale at the start line).
Glad to see the result of your shots, as someone say "so much wallpapers material here". NIce :)

Author25

Haha, I hope I was not too much of an eye sore.

26

Love the photos of Mac F1. Would love to see more

27

The entire coverage on the Goodwood Festival of Speed has been incredible. From the cars themselves to the photo quality. Thank you Speedhunters staff for delivering such exceptional content. I will have to see this in person some day....

Author28

Thanks for the support!

29

Awesome photos!

30

Jaw dropping pictures, as usual...

31

Oh man, I'm a sucker for a jaguar XJ220. Great article!

32

Bin der.....dun dat .....loved it.

33

Amazing photos Larry, wish I could've met you or at least say hello haha.

It was a crazy 4 days, got there on the Wednesday and the fact you could go in with almost nobody around the cars was amazing. The rally stage was a blast to watch as well.

Author34

It really blew my mind being there Thursday night when all the cars were sitting there during golden hour. You were right, there was no one there.

35

Had to take a second time around on the photos. I love the vertical portrait shots, something we don't see enough of in automotive photography.

Author36

I wish I could do more of those, and up until just recently we could not even display those properly on the site.

37
Alexander Boroday

All the year we read articles and look at photos of drift cars and guys. And only once a year we got such awesome fest as Goodwood, to look at some epic cars from the "past, good days". And what do we get in final? Almost 1/4 of all photos are related to drift cars. Shame, bro...
P.S. anyway pics are to good to be true, as always ;)

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