Goodwood Revival's arrival brings excitement - and not just for those attending

It’s Goodwood Revival time again – and it’s not just the thousands who’ll be dressing up from a bygone ago to attend the celebration of the golden era of motorsport who are getting excited.

So too are a variety of local organisations who benefit from the event – whether it’s charities who are given free tickets to dish out for the spectacular three-day event or the likes of the Aldingbourne Trust, whose staff and those they support are looking forward to a big donation of recycled wood.

Sarah Bullen, general manager of the event, which is presented by Dunlop, said planning was well advanced and going smoothly for the September 18 to 20 event at and around the famous Goodwood Motor Circuit.

“It’s coming together really well. We've been very blessed with the good weather over summer, which has meant our build is going really nicely and everything's in place,” said Sarah.

“We normally start building about six weeks out and then it takes us about two weeks to break it all down. But in terms of the planning for the event, typically we're looking about five years ahead with much more focus about two years ahead. So we've already got all our content plans, for example, set for next year and they'll be announced shortly after we go on sale, the day after Revival's finished this year."

This year’s event is a heady mixture of the races and sideshows people would expect and some new features. Petrolheads won’t be the only ones to savour it.

“In terms of the unmissable moments for this year, one of the wonderful things we're celebrating is La Dolce Vita – it's a taste of the sweet life in Italy,” said Sarah.

"We've a Maserati celebration out on track, with about 50 pre-1966 Maseratis. And one thing I'm really looking forward to is our Vespa celebration. We’ll have about 300 Vespas opening the track each day, then those vehicles will be dotted around the site for people to go and have a look at – they really are quite special.

"We’ll have little touches of Italy around the site as well, great coffee, great pizza – and immerse yourself in the fashion of Italy. And that feeds across to the Revive and Thrive stage.

"We also have, and this will be really special, the Le Mans 66 winners, the GT40s that were first, second and third, all together at Revival on track, which will be unbelievable. Then they'll be based in our Earl’s Court Motor Show on our new Dunlop Stand for the remainder of the weekend, where people can get up close to those cars, quite amazing to behold.”

All the historic Revival races will be run throughout the three days, of course.

“We have all the major ones we normally have, one of the highlights being the J40s, the children in the pedal cars, that's always great. And we'll finish the weekend this year with our RAC TT – we've got F1 world champions like Jenson Button and Jacques Villeneuve racing in that.

"Once that concludes, we're going to have the very first of the Revival closing parties this year – a whole new thing for Revival. Those who have Sunday tickets can look forward to that. We'll have music, invite everybody on to the track itself, and have a bit of a dance and a celebratory glass of champagne to celebrate the three days.

"I think one of the charms of Revival is how immersive it is. The on-track content is obviously sensational, but the off-track stuff has its place as well. There's so much for people to enjoy and it's really nice to invite almost all of that on to the track for one big celebratory thank-you to everyone for coming.

"It would be really nice to have everybody in that moment. We did it a little last year with our VE Day celebration and everybody loved it. It felt like we'd all come together, so we're trying to build on that this year – and some great faces are going to appear in that moment.”

One of the themes that can get overlooked is how Revival ains to be sustainable – and how it helps local organisations.

“The sustainability message is weaved into everything we do at Revival, from the historic motor cars that are restored, from the clothes that people wear, and that's a key thread, and what we try to champion across our Revive and Thrive stage,” Sarah said.

"But the charity element of that is hugely important too. Typically we give away about £15,000 worth of tickets each year to charities so they can auction them off and raise funds – then we invite charities each year as well that normally make about £65,000 each year.

"We have our charity, the Goodwood Education Trust, celebrating their 50 years but we've worked with the likes of Aldingbourne Trust in the past and raised some money for them – a huge part of what we do.”

The Aldingbourne Trust will be taking a big delivery of wood once Revival’s sets are dismantled.

Cara Horne, Senior Marketing Officer at Aldingbourne Trust, explained how the charity supported more than 2,000 adults a year with learning disabilities and autism through supported living and work, providing opportunities for them to get into paid work.

“We have various social enterprises, one being the Country Centre which is a visitor attraction which welcomes over 80,000 visitors a year,” Cara said. “And the people we support are staff there, work on the open farm, in the wood department, in horticulture, in the cafe, and they are supported to build confidence and skills.”

So where does Goodwood Revival come into their work?

"The partnership with Goodwood started last year and since then it's been a fantastic opportunity for the people that we support to be part of and to raise funds for us. We were one of Goodwood’s chosen charities last year,” Cara said.

"Our wood department gets a load of wood from the site once Revival is over. The department is one of our social enterprises so all the wood that we get and collect and recycle, none of it goes to waste. Everything is used so the wood that we get from Goodwood is absolutely vital and it helps us provide the skills for people we support to be part of the workshop and make sure that that wood is not wasted."

Sarah added: “We do lots of set builds across the site. We introduced last year a waste transfer station, the first time we’ve properly managed our waste flows. It's always recycled but we are manning that now to make sure all our contractors are separating their waste streams – and the wood donation pile is a significant part of that.

"So from of our set builds, what we can't sell on for charitable donations, we harness all the wood that isn't used, put it in a donation pile and then the likes of local schools or the Aldingbourne Trust receive that wood to do what they want. It's a nice circular process that means that we're not throwing things away.”

Bruce Wilkins, wood manager at the Aldingbourne Trust, said: “As the wood department at the trust, we go out and collect and ‘rescue’ wood from landfill. We go out to organisations such as builders and collect wood.

"The donation we get from Goodwood is fantastic and last year it helped us build our entire Hallowe’en show set that we put on at the Trust. And that's one of our biggest fundraisers of the year – we've got that coming up again this year.

"It’s a great example of recycling – it shows what can be done if the right systems are in place – and the skills it gives the people that we support are vital: they help collect it, they help sort it, they help process it and we use it on the things that we're building.

"We use it to maintain the farm and the rest of the country centre, we make things out of it for selling and things like that. The people who are with us are involved in the whole process, learning different skills in the wood yard, building confidence, speaking and engaging with the people that come in and use the Trust,"

The link-up is a dream for Bruce, who is a Revival fan: “I've come to the Revival almost every single year. It's absolutely fabulous – we love the dressing up and the environment.

"All the people we support, they love being involved in community activities and that's one of the things that Goodwood does really amazingly."

Tickets are still available for the Friday and Sunday of Revival but Sarah said: “Get in there quickly if you’re thinking about it.”