For the third straight year longtime racing partners Will Spencer and his good friend, Ed Berrier, will be attending the world-renowned Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex, England. We shared a little bit about their story in a blog post here in early May.
The Goodwood Festival of Speed was first introduced in 1993 by Lord March on the grounds of the Goodwood Estate, a location rich in British motor racing history. Each year, motorists from all over the world bring their own racing vehicles, from F1 Machines to NASCAR racecars to motorbikes, to participate in front of huge crowds in the numerous events held during the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Before attending each year, Will and Ed have built NASCAR racecars from the ground up at JKS Incorporated, Spencer’s company located in Welcome, NC. This year, the duo will be tackling the course in two pretty special cars. Spencer will be driving the custom designed #1 Winston-sponsored NASCAR Cup Series car. His partner will be driving the #88 Nationwide sponsored NASCAR Cup series car, usually driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr. Both gentlemen are pretty excited to be driving such well-known vehicles in this fun race occuring across a long way from the typical tracks of NASCAR racing.
As the proud owner of our museum, Will Spencer is paying homage to the Winston brand that sponsored the top NASCAR series from 1971 to 2003. As with every year, the cars that Spencer and Berrier drive are sent over to the UK in shipping containers. It usually takes about two to three weeks for the containers to travel over the distance across the Atlantic Ocean. This year the cars have been loaded into a 45 ft. container aboard the Cosco Vietnam vessel and are scheduled to arrive on June 10th. Once they arrive in the UK the two cars will be held in a secure compound before being delivered to the Goodwood Festival of Speed just a few days before the event begins, awaiting the arrival of Will and Ed.
Competitors of the festival will begin arriving on June 26th with the actual first day beginning on Thursday the 29th of June. The first day will be a day for the public to walk around the paddock area to see all of the competitor’s vehicles and will include two runs for Hillclimb vehicles. Final competition and prize giving will take place on Sunday July 2nd.
Everyone here at the museum wishes our racers good luck as they head out for the 2017 Goodwood Festival of Speed in just a few weeks. Stay up to date on the festivities of this racing event…and see how they fare in the Hillclimb by checking in at the Festival website.
Want to check out some footage from last year’s Festival of Speed? Here you go.
Photo attribution: By Matthew Lamb – FoS20162016_0625_104250AA, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49763676 By Matthew Lamb – FoS20162016_0625_104250AA, CC BY-SA 2.0
