The Goodwood Festival of Speed will kick off on Friday featuring the usual mind-boggling array of vintage racing machinery piloted by racing legends.
If you aren’t winging your way there now, or already in the UK and driving there, here’s just a smattering of what and who you’re going to miss according to Goodwood organizers:
Dan Gurney, the all-American racing hero, will drive a range of historic cars from his varied career, including a Ford GT40, an AC Cobra and his Eagle-Weslake T1G;
Mika Hakkinen, former F1 World Champion for West McLaren Mercedes, will take to the hill at the Festival on Saturday and Sunday, hopefully driving both a historic 1981 McLaren MP4 and the contemporary car;
Hurley Haywood, American sports car star, will drive the Audi 200 Quattro in which he took the Trans-Am title;
Damon Hill, former F1 World Champion, is expected to take to the hill in a Lotus 49 F1 car on Sunday;
Jacky Ickx, GP star and six-time Le Mans winner, will be in action on the hill in a Lancia Ferrari D50 and on the Forest Rally Stage in a Porsche 959 Paris-Dakar car;
Parnelli Jones, the Trans-Am and Indycar racing legend, will drive his title-winning Ford Mustang and two of the distinctive Indycars constructed by his own VPJ team;
Nigel Mansell, Britain’s best loved F1 Champion, will drive a JPS-liveried Lotus 91 from his early career and his 1993 Championship-winning Newman-Haas Indycar;
Sir Stirling Moss will drive all weekend in his 1958 Argentine GP-winning Cooper Climax T43, as well as the Mercedes-Benz W196 in which he dominated the 1955 season along with team leader Juan Manuel Fangio;
Colin McRae, former World Rally Champion, will be in action all weekend on the Forest Rally Stage, and will drive the RAC Rally-winning Subaru Impreza of his great friend and rival, Richard Burns, on the hillclimb;
Richard Petty, the only man to win 200 NASCAR races, will drive a 1972 Dodge Charger as well as a contemporary Dodge NASCAR.
Sir Jackie Stewart, three-time World Champion, will drive his title-winning Matra and Tyrrell F1 cars, as well as the BRM P261 in which he won his first Grand Prix 40 years ago.
Marcus Gronholm, twice World Rally Champion, will drive the latest Ford Focus WRC on both the hillclimb and the Forest Rally Stage.
Derek Bell will once more be at the Festival all three days, driving a Jaguar E-type lightweight, a Grand Prix Ferrari 246 Dino and his Tecno F1 car.
(This post originally appeared in the July 6, 2006, issue of the Hemmings eWeekly Newsletter.)