Festival of Speed continues to thrill!

| 2 Jul 2011

With more Indy car displays, spectacular Group B rally car action and a raft of celebrities blasting some iconic cars up Goodwood's famous hill, the second day of the Festival of Speed kept fans hooked.

Both the forest rally stage and the hill came alive to the sounds of mighty Group B cars to mark the famously ferocious rally class. The iconic MG Metro 6R4 - the naturally aspirated V6 that showed such promise in Tony Ponds' hands at its RAC Rally debut - thundered through the woods, reminding fans of just how Group B was so awesome it ended up being banned.

The 6R4 was joined by a couple of Audi Sport Quattros while earlier rally classes included the ex-Timo Mäkinen, 1975 RAC Rally-winning Ford Escort Mk2 RS1800 and TV celebrity chef James Martin's 1963 Mini Cooper S that took Paddy Hopkirk and Henry Liddon to a 4th place in the 1963 running of the event.

On the hill the Indy cars continued to thrill with the centenary celebrations again kicked off with guitar superhero Jeff Kolman belting out the Star Spangled Banner from the roof of Goodwood House, before the cars were fired up for their runs up the hill.

Lord March (below) demonstrated one of the most famous Indy cars in the display: the 1968 Lotus-Pratt & Whitney STP Special that Parnelli Jones so nearly clinched the 1967 Indy with.

US television celebrity and noted car collector Jay Leno made his second ever appearance at the Festival of Speed in spectacular style by blasting the famous record-breaking John Cobb Napier Railton (below) up the hill.

F1 hero and former world champ Jenson Button was on hand too, showing off the new McLaren MP4-12C supercar which he opted for instead of his 2008 MP4-23 F1 car in order to avoid exacerbating a knee injury he incurred recently while jet skiing.

Other F1 heros to wow the crowds included John Surtees - the only driver to win the world championship on both two and four wheels - who was in the Mercedes-Benz W165 (below), the car that was built to win the prestigious Tripoli GP which it did spectacularly in 1939, while Hans Stuck was again at the wheel of the mighty Auto Union Type D.

Also blasting up the hill - but in something rather more petite - was C&SC's Ed-in-Chief Mick Walsh, at the wheel of the Donington Collection's 1935 Austin Seven Supercharged Twin Cam which achieved several distance records in period thanks to its phenomenal 120bhp output from just 750cc.