Racing lines: the stars shined at this year's Goodwood

Typically of Murray, beside the BT44B sat the designer’s incongruous, tiny and very orange Formula 750 IGM T4 special, which he began building but never finished on arrival in the UK from his native South Africa 50-odd years ago, now complete and making its public debut. Murray bubbled with schoolboy enthusiasm as he showed off a T-shirt under his race overalls emblazoned with an image of the funny little car. Beyond all the shiny corporate bits, that’s the true spirit of the FoS right there.

Americans steal the show

Beyond the endless displays of alluring metal, it’s the people you see at Goodwood that really brings the festival alive. Roger Penske hadn’t been to Goodwood since he raced a Ferrari 250 GTO at the Motor Circuit in the 1963 Tourist Trophy. It’s amazing that he hadn’t returned before now, but the Duke of Richmond always gets his man – well, nearly always. The ‘big one’ who he has never managed to lure across the Atlantic is AJ Foyt, and given that Super Tex is 86 and not exactly in the prime of health, perhaps he’s one who will get away.

Penske, the most important, influential and powerful man in US motorsport, looked in great shape as Goodwood this year chose to honour ‘The Maestros: motorsport’s great all-rounders’. Penske’s own driving career was short yet not without promise, but it was as a team owner who ran some of US racing’s greatest in Indycar, Can-Am, Nascar, sports cars and even F1 that he ticked that box and then some. Penske even drove up the hillclimb in the Porsche RS Spyder LMP2 that his team ran to Sebring 12 Hours glory. Not bad for a guy of 84.

Tom Cruise turned up on the Sunday, having watched the women’s final at Wimbledon the day before and ahead of attending a certain football match at Wembley. If only he had come in character as Cole Trickle from his glorious Nascar movie Days of Thunder…

But film stars… pah. They’re nothing compared with Mario Andretti, who was oozing charisma and charm as he always does.

Reunited with old friends and rivals Sir Jackie Stewart and Emerson Fittipaldi, Andretti was like a pig in the proverbial, especially when he got a run in a 1952 Ferrari 500 that was raced to F1 title glory by his childhood idol, Alberto Ascari. Andretti is 81 now, Stewart 82, Fittipaldi a mere 74… Having recently lost the likes of Sir Stirling Moss and Murray Walker, it’s imperative that we cherish every moment we can grab with such towering heroes of motorsport. Reutemann’s passing only rubbed that in.

Bell chimes on the hill

Proper speed on the hillclimb is something Goodwood has been cautious to encourage in the wake of serious accidents that included the tragic deaths of a driver and a marshal in 2000. But in recent years, the Sunday afternoon shootout for the fastest time of the weekend has gained an all too familiar edge.

Jack Tetley’s shunt in a Chevrolet Camaro stock car (or was it actually Cruise as Trickle?) was a reminder of how things can unravel when drivers get carried away. Still, it was assuring how well the quaint straw bales contained the Chevy as it ping-ponged across the narrow track, Tetley having dropped two wheels on the grass on the run to the finish.

Once the significant mess was cleared away, McLaren works GT driver Rob Bell did the quickest run, taking just 45.01sec in a moody black 720S GT3X.