This years event was very well attended by members of our group, with 9 members attending on the Friday, 11 on the Saturday, and 10 on the Sunday, 9 of those who attended did all 3 days which is what Goodwood try to encourage by giving priority to those who can marshal for 3 days, then those who can do 2 days and finally those who can only do one day are expected to fill any gaps, our team included 2 new members, Bill Hiscock (featured in the picture on the left) who marshalled on all 3 days, and Alec Martin who stood in at short notice, when Colin dropped out on the Sunday both of whom did an excellent job.

The Friday morning started with the usual marshals briefing at the end of which Kevin announced that it was Bobs Birthday, we were marshalling at crossing point 4 which is our usual spot, when I arrived there I was asked by Tony Cotton our Sector Commander, if we would run the house side of the sector as usual, and if I could also provide 3 marshals on a rotation basis to help run the other side of the sector.  It usually takes a lot of hard work and a lot of time on a Friday to get the drivers to understand that we want them to mess about all weekend, with as many burnouts and doughnuts as possible, however this year they were very quick on the uptake and it only took a little coaxing to get the cars playing, starting from the very first batch of the day.  Part of the way through the morning Tony came across to say that he had noticed that Tom, one of his guy on the other side of the crossing was wearing the tabard with the same number as Bobs age and asked if it would be ok to write today on it and change it with the one that Bob was wearing, of course I agreed.  It had been a very good start to the FOS, we had several grid starts, and a few burnouts including 2 by the motorbike boys.  Stand down time came and we left for the campsite happy that there was a reasonable amount of rubber on the ground in our sector, far more than in other years, on arrival back at the campsite we prepared to celebrate Bobs birthday, there was plenty of nibbles kindly provided by Bob's family, and 3 cakes baked by Maureen, and of course lots of alcohol provided by all of us, I believe the party went on quite late, although Roger and I left at about 9:45.

Saturday at sign on, the sky was full of black clouds and we all thought we would be getting very wet, before we left for our post we had to change Bob's tabard to say "yesterday".  The days track events started with the Super Cars, and as yesterday they were very willing to play, just after they had returned down the hill we had a short light shower of rain which made the hill a little damp, but then about 10 minutes later it started to rain again, this time moderate rain fell for about 5 or 6 minutes and the hill was fairley wet and I was afraid that this would stop the F1 cars from messing around on their morning run, however I need not have worried as the heat and gentle breeze had dried the ground well before their batch started, and they and many other cars and bikes certainly give us a show, with loads more burnouts by both cars and bikes, and absolutely tons of grid starts, we even had a doughnut done in our gateway by Sebastien Loeb, by the end of the day our sector looked the best we had ever seen it with plenty of rubber on the ground both up (picture left) and down (picture right) the hill.  On return to the campsite we started to celebrate Bob's birthday again, although Roger and I didn't stay long as we needed to get some sleep.

Well after 2 brilliant days it was hard to imagine that Sunday could keep up the standard set on Saturday, and its fair to say that the day didn't start well for our group. Ian, Maureen and myself were walking around some of the stands not far from our crossing point, when suddenly Maureen fell to the ground, I asked if she was alright and she said that she had hurt her leg, so Ian stayed with her and I got the first aiders, after they had finished their examination it was found that Maureen had broken her ankle, and was taken away by ambulance.  Although for the early part of the day our thoughts were on Maureen as we waited for news on her condition, we tried to enjoy the action on the hill which was good right from the start, with lots of playing in the morning, little did we know that the afternoon would be even better with not 1 or 2 but 4 bikes all doing burnouts at the same time by our crossing point, but the icing on the cake was jut to come when Hamilton did his only run of the event in his F1 car, and on the way up the hill he stopped and did a doughnut in our crossing point, only about 9 foot from where we were standing, we have been trying to get an F1 car to do this for years, so we were very happy, but then on his way back down he stopped and did another one, Dave said to me "I didn't think we would ever manage to get one doughnut here from an F1 car, let alone Two!", and I had to agree, stand down time came and as we set off to the sign on point, I was feeling pleased with our hard work and all the rubber we had managed to get on the ground, little did I know I was about to get stitched up.  Some of you will know that my least favourite car is the Ford KA, you could even say I hate them with a passion; well when I went to see if I had won a prize in the marshals draw I could not believe that out of all the people there and 100 prizes, the

one I had to get was one full of bits on the Ford Kack, sorry I mean KA, there was a mouse mat, a model, a badge, a key ring, a poster, a brochure and a test drive, (see picture left) well after taking the p*** for 10 minutes, Ian came over with the Chief Marshals wife Rachel who organises the draw, he told me that this was not my real prize, ant presented me with the t-shirt I had really won, and told me that the other bag was a wind up that the group had been planning for a whole year, and had enlisted the help of Rachel to pull it off.

This year was a brilliant year and we are going to have to work very hard to keep up this standard again next year.  Once again I would like to thank everyone who marshalled at the FOS, there is also thanks for Tony on the thanks page, and I have compiled a page of pictures and footage for Goodwood FOS, many of them show some of us and our sector, you will find them here

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