Drive to Goodwood (11 Jan 2004)

The early January Drive to Goodwood started in Wimbledon and went down to the Goodwood Estate in West Sussex. The drive down south had two guests from New South Wales MX-5 Car Club, Jan and John Burgess. Jan is the NSW MX-5 Club secretary. The Burgess' are gluttons for punishment as they are on their second MX-5, a Tenth Anniversary and have an order for the new 2004 model Turbo MX-5.

The most interesting thing about the West London chapter of the MX-5 Club is the diversity of the members and the cars, we have an RX-8, SLK, Caterham 7, Mini Cooper, and Graham Miles-Kingston's new Toy made its debut run - a 190hp Toyota Celica. The common link is we have all owned or own MX-5s at some stage of time.

The drive encompassed a drive past the Wimbledon Tennis Courts and down the A3 before turning off for the scenic route of the A283/A285. Sure as washing your car, having a BBQ, or putting the washing on the line, the heavens opened! With the cloud cover along the A283 the bellow from the tuned exhaust bounced off the clouds. When the group arrived at Goodwood there was the smell of Castrol R, and the high pitched whine of a racing engine from a car testing at the circuit. The statue of Douglas Bader in the airfield had a pigeon leaving a deposit! At the extremities of Goodwood is the greenfields Rolls Royce site - a complete contrast to the Factory at Crewe which is intertwined in history as the place where the Merlin aircraft engines were built in World War II.

Lunch was at nearby Halnaker, at a pub/restaurant called the Angelsea Arms. The Guinness met with approval from the Irish contingent, and the food -Sunday roast, fish of the day was absolutely superb - worth booking if you want to go to a place after travelling to Goodwood for the horse/car racing. The wet drive back to London ended with a coffee at the Cutty Sark in Greenwich - a fitting end to a superb drive.

(Editor's note - sorry, there are no pictures from this event)

Russell Wheatley