Goodwood Festival of Speed 2011

The Fensport team were at Goodwood Festival of speed in 2011, running our Celica GT4X at the infamous Hillclimb. The car was a reserve entry for Toyota and we were lucky to run on the Saturday and Sunday.

Goodwood Hillclimb is essentially a country road, rising over 300ft from the start line to the finish, the course is very technical and challenging. The 1.16 mile course is very demanding with its off camber and blind brows, an ultimate test of man and machine!

Saturday morning was our first chance to check out the Hill, and after changing to slicks in the afternoon, the Celica qualified in 6th place overall, not at all bad for 2 runs :)

Sunday, is the real race day and a practise run in the morning saw the GT4X eclipse the time from our previous run in 2009 in preperation for the Top Ten Final Shootout in the afternoon.

The final run in Adrian's words...

"Sitting on the startline with launch control, you eaze the clutch gently and the car rockets off the line, grab 2nd and the nitrous kicks in and 800bhp propels you in to 3rd so quickly. Hard on the brakes and down to 2nd for the 1st 90 degree left, then grab 3rd an balance the throttle, grip and steering for the 2nd corner. Then its flat out past the main grandstands at 140mph+, brake carefully over the blind brow and in to molecombe, an off camber tricky corner, as soon as you can back on the power and up the hill, 3rd gear, 4th gear, the car gets airborne over the bumps, as soon as it lands brake hard and turn in past the wall. As soon as you know the turn in is ok its full throttle all the way round the wall, great G force here :) then its out in to the sunshine over the blind brow and aim for the dark hole corner! and hope the road is still there!, then flat in 3rd, then 4th and set the car up for the final left hander, dont turn in early or you will die on the exit, just a lift of the throttle gets the nose in and then full throttle and hang on till the line....and you've just done a 50:03s run up Goodwood Hill :)

By the way, it takes longer to read the paragraph above than it does to drive the hill :)

and heres a video of the final run

Adrian also says

"The Celica is awesome to drive at Goodwood and it surprises so many people that the car can go quite so fast up against some of the very best drivers and competition cars, including ex F1 machinery"

Huge thank you to all Fensport Team for a great car and a huge thank you for Toyota for the invitation to drive at Goodwood :)and of course many thanks to all our sponsors and supporters :)