The racing circuit began life as the perimeter track of
RAF Westhampnett airfield, which was constructed during
World War II as a relief airfield for
RAF Tangmere. The winner of the first race was P. de F. C. Pycroft, in his 2,664 cc Pycroft-Jaguar, at .
Stirling Moss won the 500 cc race (later to become
Formula 3), Increasing car speeds made organisers aware of the dangers of a fast car losing control at this curve, and after
Giuseppe Farina won the 1951 Goodwood Trophy race in his
Alfa Romeo 159 at over , the curve was replaced with a
chicane in 1952. At first, the chicane was made using straw bales and boarding, before brick walls were constructed in 1953. Despite a number of accidents this brick chicane survived until the circuit's closure for racing in 1966, before it was rammed and destroyed in the mid-1970s by a transporter belonging to
Team Surtees that was leaving the circuit after a test session. When the circuit was restored in the late 1990s, the chicane was remade using polystyrene blocks. before the car was shipped to Australia – where it finally broke the record in 1964. The car was a
Bristol Siddeley turbine-powered streamliner, with a theoretical top speed of . The laps of Goodwood were effectively at "tick-over" speed, because the car had only four degrees of steering lock, with a maximum of on the straight on one lap. Goodwood saw its last race meeting for over 30 years in 1966, because the owners did not want to modify the track with more chicanes to control the increased speeds of modern racing cars. The last event of the era was a club meeting organised by the
British Automobile Racing Club on 2 July 1966. The lap record was a 1 minute and 20.4 seconds set by both Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark, in the 1965 Glover Trophy, the final formula one race at the circuit.
Goodwood Nine Hours == Testing ==