Goodwood Revival Day 2 Review
After a relatively hectic first day, all the Alfa action on Day 2 of the Goodwood Revival was crammed into a one hour window over lunch time. It should have started much earlier, with Julian Majzub’s 1938 308C in the Goodwood Trophy, but having failed to make the qualifying session on the opening day, the trans-WWII Grand Prix category would be Alfa-free.
A quick visit to the paddock before the race revealed that, although Mazjub had brought the car along, it was essentially only for display purposes – the owner having decided that they didn’t have time to address the problems which afflicted the car at last year’s event.
There was only a single representative in the Fordwater Trophy, too. Andrew Lawley had qualified his Giulietta Sprint Veloce 8th in torrential rain on the opening day and, with the forecast had the dry start to the second day of competition turning wet again within an hour or so of the scheduled start. That made setup a bit of a gamble.
Even as the racing started, there was a pretty even chance of a wet race, a dry race on a cold, damp track still recovering from yesterday’s rain – and a wet race following a shower which threatened to bubble up and peter out in the hour before the off.
Part 1 of the St Mary’s Trophy was even closer to the window for the weather breaking, with most teams staying optimistic and opting for a dry weather setup, while they watched the weather radar carefully. Again, the outcome of the race would be very different, depending on the conditions. With the same conditions we saw in qualifying, there was the potential for the Mini Coopers and the Furiani/Stippler GTA to be the class of the field. On a thoroughly dry track, the Alfa would probably close the gap to the Minis, but the but big Ford Galaxies would then be breathing down his neck.
In the end, both races got the worst of both worlds – or the best, perhaps, if you were a spectator in a covered grandstand. Before both there was a short spell of drizzle, which persisted through the races, keeping the grip low and causing the odd spin, but never making the circuit really hazardous.
In the Fordwater Trophy, Lawley started well but settled into a steady mid-field pace, before pulling off the circuit with what, at that point, seemed to be two or three laps to go. And then one of the two leading cars – who had swapped back and forth throughout the race spun and brought out the red flag on the following lap, bringing proceedings to a close. Disappointing for everyone, but the red flag meant that the result was taken from the previous lap and Tim Crighton got second in his Austin Healey 100/6 – behind Marc Gordon’s Jaguar XK150 which was at least still running when the race ended.
It looked like the St Mary’s Trophy Part 1 might be full of disappointment, too, when Charlie March retired the Mike Holton Jolly Club GTA on the out lap. Shame though that was, the race couldn’t have gone much better for Alfa Romeo fans. Frank Stippler, who had qualified third, took the lead before the first corner and, despite relentless pressure from Jake Hill in the enormous Plymouth Barracuda and Romain Dumas in the even more enormous Ford Galaxie 500, stayed there for the duration. Stippler’s victory looked fairly secure win the closing stages but was guaranteed when a Mini – of all things – was lapped by the Alfa but stayed ahead of the Plymouth though the chicane – giving Stippler the gap he needed to be comfortable. But behind him the two American behemoths were separated by just 0.008 seconds.
That might give the impression that it was a pedestrian race, but nothing could be further from the truth. Andrew Jordan had Alfa first and third for a couple of laps when he passed Dumas – and had a couple of looks at Hill, before dropping off the pace a little and finishing sixth behind a brace of Lotus Cortinas.
Marino Franchitti, Emanuele Pirro and Jean-Eric Vergne had a series of intense battles with each other, Minis, Cortinas and a BMW 1800 Ti. Their GTAs came home in that order – in 15th, 16th and 18th positions. Vergne would probably have taken 17th, too, if he hadn’t run wide on the penultimate tour. Jochen Mass was 23rd in the last of the GTAs.
Alex Furiani goes into tomorrow’s Part 2 with a 3.4 second lead for the combined result, but with two rivals effectively the same distance behind.
