South Downs Stages
The Phil Collings Memorial Rally.
South Downs Rally Stages from Goodwood.
While my fellow PistonClick contributor was enjoying the Jack Neal Memorial Rally at Blyton, I was 200 miles south at Goodwood for the South Downs Stages. The event follows the usual circuit rally practice of creating timed special stages using the racetrack, pitlane and access roads with occasional cone and wooden pallet chicanes. More of the latter anon.
Another 06.30 start was required to ensure that I was there in time for first car at 09.00 and its wasn’t long before the rasp of tuned engines filled the air. With the close proximity of local housing, noise is a challenge at Goodwood and is monitored extremely carefully.
For stage 1, I headed out to the first corner of the circuit, Madgwick (there’s a track map in the PistonClick Goodwood Circuit Guide). For the morning stages, the cars were running anti-clockwise but given the lack of fences and superb access, this was no issue.
The track was damp from overnight rain and there was no doubt that the four-wheel drive cars would have an initial advantage.
However, the Escorts of varying vintage and degrees of sophistication – for example, some are running 2.5l engines – continued to entertain.
Towards the end of the stage 1, a short shower dampened the track. This led to occasional lapses of judgment approaching the chicanes with cones being taken for a trip around the stage.
Added to that, some stages required two laps of the circuit opening up the possibility of catching other cars.
For stage 2, I walked towards Fordwater to get the cars entering the chicane where they were providing thrills and spills and leading to some imaginative routes through which were sometimes clearly quicker !
The weather then intervened with another short shower. Cover was taken at Madgwick which allowed me to get the cars using a new loop onto the run-off area for stage 3.
Surprisingly, everyone behaved extremely well with all cones surviving intact here whilst the wet conditions gave some pleasing water running off the cars.
I then headed back up towards Fordwater for stage 4 and was able to get a long shot with spray as the cars came towards me. I only used the 70-200mm zoom lens all day, although this is one place where I could have used the 200-500mm zoom to good effect.
Back to exit of Madgwick for stage 5 and a neat shot of the cars using the loop that had been created. By now, drivers seemed to have decided to leave the cones alone and most were left in their designated places.
After the lunch break, including an excellent bacon sandwich at the Control Tower Café, I headed to the inside of the track and the iconic shot of the Goodwood chicane. Here, the absence of the grandstands usually seen at the Revival and Members Meetings was most noticeable.
Stages 6 and 7 used the same layout with the cars now circulating in the more familiar clockwise direction. With two laps of the circuit, there are two separate shots here – one through the chicane and the other a panning shot of the flying finish.
With the light starting to fade, I moved to the start / finish line. For the last two stages, the start was in the pitlane providing a distinctive backdrop.
The cars then passed by to start their second lap - at high speed through a chicane.
By the time the last stage started, darkness had pretty much set in so the camera was packed away and I simply enjoyed the sights and sounds of the cars. The overall winners were Richard Weaver and James Pink in their Mitsubishi Evo 6 for their first ever overall rally win.
Class A was won by the very rapid - and very orange - Nova of Chris and Anthony Newton.
Class B was won by Graham Palmer and Dominic Worsfold in their Fiesta.
Class C went to Tim Mewett and Liz Jordan’s Mk2 Escort.
Class D was won by previous overall winners Paul King and Alicia Miles in their very smart looking Escort RS.
Class E was won by the Subaru Impreza of Dean Long and Jonathan Barrett.
All words and pictures by David Harbey Photography.
A few images that didn’t make the cut.
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