The glory of Goodwood

By Mike Lawrence, Simon Tayler and Doug Nye

ISBN 1 85227 826 9

Published by Virgin, £30.00

Goodwood is fast becoming a brand in its own right and this book, a celebration of all that has happened on the famous Sussex site from its days as RAF Westhampnett to the first Revival Meeting in 1998, merely reflects this happy fact. The merits it possesses — exceptional quality and attention to detail — are those of the brand it is designed to promote and the whole has been carried off with the same slickness and professionalism one has always been able to take for granted at any Goodwood event

It is a fine product, informative yet emotive, written with all the verve you’d expect from authors who need no further introduction from me. It is at once a thorough biography of the circuit and a riotous celebration of all that was and remains great about the English way of motor racing.

Yet what remains, rightly, its most appealing aspect is the photography. I’m not sure about blending in the shots of the Revival Meeting with those from the past — it looks slightly contrived and breaks the flow of the beautiful black and white pictures — but as a photographic record of both life and racing at a circuit, it is beyond compare. What is most pleasing is that the book’s designers have not been frightened to give the photographs the space they need to really come alive and if many of them have been seen before, none seems out of place here.

We have waited a long time for the circuit to reopen and, consequently, for this book to appear. Its creators had just one shot at a comprehensive history of the circuit, one that would stand for all time. And, as we now expect from the Goodwood brand, they got it right first time out. AF