Table of contents

• Reportage – Goodwood Revival 2015 At the Duke with the king shaft
• The racetrack was opened in 1948
• Andy Reynolds rides the dream motorcycle of his youth
• Goodwood puts a lot of pressure on the engines
• Misfiring on the warm-up lap
• Tough duel at the top

Muschalla

13th pictures

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1/13
Wonderfully unrestrained: There is heavy smoking in the field of the Ferrari 250 GTO, Jaguar E-Type, AC Cobra and Aston Martin.

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2/13
True to style: Maria Costello next to her temporarily single-cylinder BMW.

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3/13
The perfect setting: for gags like this archaeological dig, the earl hires a theater director.

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4/13
Review of the 2015 Goodwood Revival.

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5/13
Goodwood Revival 2015.

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6/13
Goodwood Revival 2015.

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7/13
Goodwood Revival 2015.

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8/13
Goodwood Revival 2015.

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9/13
Goodwood Revival 2015.

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10/13
Goodwood Revival 2015.

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If you queue up to register, you can get to know a lot of racing celebrities.

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Goodwood Revival 2015.

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The fashion of the 40s dominates.

Sports & scene

Events

Reportage – Goodwood Revival 2015

Reportage – Goodwood Revival 2015
At the Duke with the king shaft

Content of

Goodwood House near Chichester in southern England is the ancestral home of the Earl of March. And one of the most important centers of historic motorsport.

Ralf Schneider

08/10/2015

The Earl of March and Kinrara, Duke of Richmond did the honors. He had invited for a champagne cocktail, a dinner party and, most importantly, a race at the Goodwood Revival. BMW Classic again invited me to take part. On a precious vertical shaft RS 54, as part of a team of eight drivers on four motorcycles. A great honor, but one that makes my heart beat up to my neck. A preliminary test in Hockenheim relieves some nervousness. But the revival would not be what it is if it were done with this kind of preparation.

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At the Duke with the king shaft

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The dress codes keep me busy. Clothing in the style of the 40s, 50s or 60s is required for the paddock, shirt, jacket and tie or white mechanic overalls. Wearing a hat or tweed cap is recommended. I can do that, but the attempt to find a tuxedo bow to be tied by hand for the dinner party fails. Then the wedding bow tie from 1992 has to do it. I declare it my lucky charm, because after all, I’m still married to my dear wife.

The racetrack was opened in 1948

On the Thursday before the Goodwood Revival begins, the area around the Motor Circuit is vibrating with activity. Cars and motorcycles are unloaded, pushed back and forth, started, screwed, Hurricanes and Spitfires roar around their traffic laps. During World War II, Goodwood was one of the airfields from which British fighter squadrons fought approaching German bomber units. This is how motorsport began in Goodwood, because Squadron Leader Tony Gaze often used the ring road around the airfield for fast laps in his sports car. He ran into open doors with his friend Freddie March, the 9th Duke of Richmond, himself an avid racing driver, with the idea of ​​converting the Ringstrasse into a racetrack.

It was opened in 1948. Small episode on the side: Freddie March finished a test drive on a BMW R 51 in 1938 by not returning it. Instead, he sent his butler to the BMW dealer with the purchase price. The R 51 is still owned by his grandson, the Earl of March. I know that because “my” mechanic, John Bostin, exchanged the broken tail light of the R 51 for a “new-old-stock” part before the Goodwood Revival.

Andy Reynolds rides the dream motorcycle of his youth

Because the races for the Barry Sheene Memorial Trophy are contested by two drivers, BMW has given me a certain Andy Reynolds as a partner. He rides the dream motorcycle of his youth, a Norton Manx, for the Landsdown Trophy for historic GP motorcycles. I didn’t know Andy before, but when he introduces me to his wife Sheala and admits that he still can’t believe he can actually drive an RS, I immediately like him. I am also in constant fear that someone will wake me up.

Appearance of the RS 54 on the following day: Like all motorcycles present, it roars painfully, undamped and uninhibited, but sounds nicer than all the single-cylinder units. Anyone who claims that the sound of a boxer engine with its even firing order is boring should give it a listen. And also pay attention to the grinding of the spur and bevel gears.

Goodwood puts a lot of pressure on the engines

Unfortunately Andy knows the bike and I don’t know the track. Not ideal conditions for success against competitors like Kevin Schwantz, Jeremy McWilliams, James Haydon, Steve Plater or Steve Parrish, to name just a few. They go into the race on upgraded single cylinders that are faster than when they were used in the world championship. It happened as it had to: after the first training session, which also counts for the starting grid, we are last.

And still “lucky boys”. Because one of the two Kaczor replica BMWs in our team ends the training early with a blown cylinder head gasket, the other, together with her driver, performs a pike roll into the gravel bed of the “Lavant Corner”. Many other teams also have a lot to screw up after training. Goodwood is a high-speed line that puts a lot of strain on the engines. For now, we just have to worry about the exquisite chassis reactions that the RS swingarm chassis gives us. Before the first Goodwood Revival took place in 1998, the track was meticulously restored, so the Goodwood Chronicle reports, and it seems that no historical bumps have been forgotten. We agree on the slogan “hold onto the handlebars”. We can’t do more than that.

Misfiring on the warm-up lap

Then on Saturday the first race in beautiful weather. That it can take place at all for Maria Costello, the fast road racing lady and her co-driver Sebastian Gutsch, borders on a miracle. Instead of just a burned-out head gasket, the dismantling of your R 50 engine brought to light two cracked pistons, including a sucked in ear pinch that, curiously, did not burn, but instead gave its life on a pinch edge. John, who knows everyone who is involved in racing in Great Britain, spends Friday afternoon on the phone. He finally activated the owner of a workshop with a high-tech aluminum welding device. There Norbert Leis welds the two pistons, strengthens the too thinly milled piston crowns with melted-on aluminum studs and balances the piston weights. The engine runs again early in the morning.

The second Kaczor replica, meanwhile abused as a gravel transporter, bears honorable battle marks, but is straight again and goes like hell. Your owner Lothar Singer will later overtake me and it is a pleasure to watch him. We are two to three seconds faster than the day before, but we have to contend with misfires from the warm-up lap. The RS engine spits and pops so pathetically that I want to give up. But mechanically it sounds flawless, so we’re going on. Andy bravely drives the rest of the field in front of him after the driver change. Nine teams cannot finish the race and they predict that we will finish in midfield if we can make it through the second run. That is not really comforting.

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In proper style: Maria Costello next to her temporarily single-cylinder BMW.

Sebastian Gutsch didn’t even get to drive. This time a foot seal burst, it was probably jammed when you put on the cylinder with small, tired eyes. Wolfgang Meier, the nephew of the great Schorsch, shows what a vertical shaft BMW can do in Goodwood. With the meticulously constructed short-stroke RS from Jurgen Schwarzmann, he drives times under 1.40 min.Very unspectacular in driving style, but with a powerful pull on the bike.

Our bitchy magneto is freshly overhauled and magnetized again, so we don’t have a replacement with us. It would take five hours to change and adjust it anyway. If you could work in peace on a clean workbench. Not in the hustle and bustle and under the tin roof, half in the open. So John can only rule out all other possible causes of the misfiring, changes spark plug sockets, adjusts float levels and lets the engine warm up with “hot” 8-series plugs so that the 10-series racing candles do not become oily under any circumstances. Just like before.

Tough duel at the top

It does not help. In the second race, the RS only turns up to 7000 instead of the permitted 8000 rpm, and because its engine suffers from megaphonitis up to 6000 rpm, the usable range becomes very narrow. We hold the handlebars tight and let it run as best we can. Our driver change works almost optimally, it shouldn’t fail because of that. Maria and Sebastian can finally light up, as it should be. The welded pistons hold, the seals too, and Sebastian wins a tough three-way battle with speed and nerve strength. One of the three counterparties places in front of “St. Mary’s ”, the only left turn on the course, started a maneuver that couldn’t go well. Sebastian suspected it and from the safe inner line he sees how one of them has to go into the meadow and the other clears away.

The duel at the top turns out to be almost even tougher. Mike Edwards and James Haydon on a Matchless G 50 rode a Norton Manx for 17 laps with Duncan Fitchett and Jeremy McWilliams. They drive together to change drivers and leave the pit lane with the same tenths of a second interval as their partners entered. Outside they duel slipstream and slow down, maneuver with lapped drivers as obstacles and at the end cross the line with a gap of just 101 hundredths of a second. Edwards / Haydon win the second run, but the overall victory goes to Fitchett / McWilliams. We’re going to be 17. Not bad, say Goodwood aficionados. Might be. But the best part was the audience. Thousands of enthusiastic spectators watched the races and tens of thousands of visitors celebrated a gigantic racing, Battle of Britain and British Empire Carnival. And we were right in the middle of it, instead of just being there.

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