Gallery 2026 04 April Goodwood
18th - 19th April 2026 - Goodwood
Screaming into the sunset
The One Litre F3 brigade received their bi-annual invitation to compete in front of the large and knowledgable crowd who populate the Goodwood Members Meeting. Despite a late afternoon race, the sunny weather enabled the “Screamers” to entertain the crowd who stayed on to watch them and were rewarded with epic dicing from from flag to flag.
Racing for the Derek Bell Cup, there was a hugely popular win for series regular, the Italian racer Enrico Spaggiari in his GLTL liveried ex-John Miles Lotus 41X. “To finish first, first you must finish” was never more apt as both pole sitter Dan Eagling (Brabham BT18) and fellow front row sitter Peter de la Roche (Alexis Mk 17) fell foul of mechanical issues. Both would have been equally popular winners as would have Andrew Hibberd (ex Chequered Flag Brabham BT18) who qualified third but fell away from the leading group and eventually retired.
Series stalwarts dominated the running with ace preparer Dan Eagling running the ex Picko Troberg Brabham topping the short qualifying session, 0.7 second clear of 2025 HSCC HF3 Champion Peter de la Roche in his family run ex Ken Sedgley Alexis. Andrew Hibberd was half a second back from Peter with Enrico menacing only 0.2 behind, leading the second row ahead of Charlie Martin in the Paul Waine owned and rare De Sanctis ahead of Ross Drybrough (Merlin Mk14A) . All these cars sported period correct livery, as did the majority of the grid.
At the flag the the leading trio took off with enough place changing from the get-go to indicate this was going to be another barnstorming race typical of the racing these closely matched cars provide.
Quite soon, Andrew Hibberd fell away as mechanical gremlins crept in leaving Dan and Peter in a battle royal. Much place changing took place with the narrowest of margins but the racing whilst hard was completely fair.
Gradually, Dan Eagling eked out an increasing lead as Peter fell back into the clutches of the battling Enrico and Ross, Peter suffering what would become terminal fuel supply issues.
Starting 10th, Jeremy Timms was making good progress and would catch up to the Spaggiari/Drybrough scrap. The latter was resolved when Ross had an off (always scary at high speed Goodwood with little retardation on the grass and inflexible earth banking) leaving Jeremy to eventually join battle with Enrico. In one of the early place changes Jeremy braved it round the outside of Enrico at Woodcote, something which Enrico referred to with respect in his Ed Foster post race interview!
Sadly, with two laps to go, Dan’s car stuttered exiting the chicane. With a commanding lead, there was still hope but after Madgwick, Dan could be seen weaving from side to side in a forlorn hope of getting the fuel through to the engine but had to pull off almost straight away. By now, Enrico had just about managed to keep a grip on the lead despite Jeremy’s stalwart efforts and crossed the line by a small margin, magnanimously acknowledging the supportive crowds who had stayed late to watch. The duo were joined in parc ferme by Charlie Martin, making all three extremely happy and popular podium occupiers.
Part of the reason for the latter, was the back story to Jeremy Timms race. Two years ago at the same meeting, Jeremy had a huge shunt at Madgwick, severely damaging his ex-Reine Wisell Chevron B15. It took two years of hard work by Jeremy Bennett and his son, but eventually Jeremy Timms took to the track again in a pre-event test at Goodwood a week before the meeting. Sadly, contact with the chicane resulted in a very bent car, which looked unlikely to race. However, by dint of extraordinary hard work by Jeremy Bennett and in particular, his son, the car was repaired, ran a shakedown at Brands Hatch on the Friday before being rushed to Goodwood.
The HSCC HF3 series begins in earnest with the first two races taking place at Donington Park on 30/31 May.
