The Goodwood Revival can be overwhelming. The annual festival, which celebrated its 26th year in 2024, features endless displays to tour and period-dressed attendees to admire. All that, though, is secondary to the racing. You’re rarely more than 20 minutes from some sort of on-track action, and each heat ranks among the best vintage racing on the planet.
The Goodwood Revival is a must-see event for motorsports lovers, but for the drivers, it has extra significance. It’s an invite-only affair, and many of those lucky enough to get the call spend months preparing for a single race. Other drivers are more lucky – and more busy.
Seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson drove three cars in three separate events at the 2024 Revival, hopping from one to the next in a mad quest for glory – plus a laurel wreath and a cigar. Johnson scored that reward with a remarkable win, as you’ll see below, but the weekend wasn’t all highlights.
St Mary’s Trophy
Johnson’s first race was Saturday afternoon’s St Mary’s Trophy. This is a two-race, pro-am event, in which Johnson was paired up with Gregor Fisken, owner of Fiskens Fine Historic Automobiles. Together, the two campaigned a 1963 Ford Galaxie. The competition was a medley of 1960s street cars, a field ultimately dominated by another Galaxie, run quite spectacularly by Romain Dumas and Bill Shepherd.
Johnson and Fisken didn’t fare so well. In the first, 25-minute race around the 2.4-mile circuit, Johnson started in 21st and charged up to 8th. In the second race, on Sunday, Fisken took over the car, starting 10th and finishing third, behind Max Chilton in a 1965 Lotus Cortina Mk I and the winning Galaxie.
The combined result placed the Johnson/Fisken pair in third.
Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy
Johnson’s second event made the most headlines. Later on Saturday, he and teammate Dario Franchitti paired up to take on the Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy in a 1960 Aston Martin DB4GT Lightweight.
The car, purchased at auction just last year, is one of just six lightweight, right-hand-drive examples. Those characteristics make it special enough, but its prestige is further bolstered by the fact that Sir Stirling himself raced the car at Goodwood in 1960, where he won the Fordwater Trophy.
This year, the drama started well before the race. On Friday’s rainy practise, Johnson backed the car into a barrier. The DB4 bore the scars of that transgression through the rest of the weekend, its lovely rear end a patchwork of duct tape.
Johnson started the race in ninth, back on the fourth row of the grid. He took the lead after just a lap, then began to drive away from the rest of the field, opening a gap of a second. Johnson looked set for an easy hand-over to Franchitti, but suddenly everything went into disarray.
Another DB4 crashed, the 1961 example piloted by Sam Hancock and Nikolaus Ditting. The safety car took to the track just as the first driver changes were about to begin. The pits were closed, but some other drivers missed the memo, pulling in and swapping drivers anyway.
With no in-car radio, an amped-up Johnson was convinced he’d made a mistake by not pitting behind the safety car. The in-car camera showed him waving his hands in frustration. Thankfully, there were no microphones to grab what was surely some colourful language.
Johnson had done the right thing by staying out. When the pit lane reopened, Johnson pulled in and handed the car over to Franchitti, who extended their lead over the rest of the pack, putting on a drift show in the multi-million-dollar Aston on every lap.
Those who pitted under the safety car were given 50-second penalties, further taking the pressure off Franchitti. When the race ended early, due to the crash of the 1962 Chevrolet Corvette, he was 37 seconds clear of second place.
After the race, Johnson, wearing a flat cap and a big smile, was clearly thrilled. “What an honour. This has just been an event that I don’t wanna miss. I have always dreamed of coming here and competing,” he said.
He gave thanks to his team for putting the car together and, of course, to his co-driver. “He’s just been such a long-time close friend, and to be able to share a car with him and to share a win together . . . It’s gonna be a fun night.”
Johnson couldn’t party too hard – he still had one race to go.
Royal Automobile Club TT Celebration
Sunday afternoon’s main event included Johnson’s third and final race on the Goodwood Circuit for 2024, this time in a 1963 AC Cobra Le Mans Coupe, one of the original three coupes built for competition in 1963, a ride which he shared with owner and endurance racer Shaun Lynn.
The sun was trying to poke through the clouds when the race kicked off on Sunday, a day punctuated by frequent rains. Lynn started the race in 13th on a still-wet track, conditions that led to a minor off on the third lap that cost them a lot of time. The Cobra fell to 20th position, thankfully with no damage.
After Johnson took over the car, he immediately began working up through the field, running a lap down but passing cars on nearly every lap. He clawed back eight places to finish 12th.
Although Johnson’s weekend didn’t exactly end on a high note, especially considering the rough start with the crash on Friday, Saturday’s victory was well worth the trip for him. The Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy, he said, was a “bucket list race.”
