A need for speed

Nothing gets the adrenaline pumping quite like live, fast-paced action and the summer Season enjoys the finest athletic, equine and motor-driven moments of elation. Ben Lerwill tells us why awe-inspiring speed adds glamour and draws the crowds

The first step had been asking Nick the shepherd to round up his flock. It was the summer of 1993 and the Earl of March was following a long-held dream of bringing motorsport back to his Goodwood estate in West Sussex. Tents had been erected, bales had been laid along the track and a makeshift gantry had been constructed. The night before the gates opened, the Earl himself could be found painting a freshly built bridge in the drizzle. But here was the question: would anyone come?

The British Automobile Racing Club had predicted a crowd of perhaps 2,000 to what would be the inaugural Goodwood Festival of Speed. By the end of the weekend, 25,000 people had poured into the estate, among them George Harrison at the wheel of a Light Car Company Rocket. A decade later, in June 2003, with the festival now an annual fixture in the calendar, the ticketed attendance had swelled to 158,000. They say sex sells—here was the evidence that speed does the same.

In this respect, the festival was no outlier. The summer social Season has always been fond of thronged gatherings at which velocity means victory. Think of Royal Ascot, where the fleetest horses gallop at speeds approach- ing 50mph—can’t you hear the drum-roll thundering of those hooves?—or Henley Royal Regatta, where straining muscles propel eight-oared racing shells through the water with almost supernatural swiftness.