CarFest South 2013

CarFest South 2013

I was lucky enough to attend CarFest South on the 23rd of August 2013.

CarFest was set up by Radio DJ, TV Host and Petrolhead Chris Evans for BBC's Children In Need. There is an event in the north of the country and one in the south. So far this event has made over 1.5 Million Pounds for the charity.

CarFest South is held at Jody Scheckter's farm in Laverstoke near Overton in Hampshire. Jody Scheckter is the 1979 F1 World Champion driving a Ferrari.

I set off with my dad to get to to the event early as I don't want to miss anything. We arrive in good time and when the time comes, the gates open and we are allowed in. 

Looking at the programme, we start to get an idea of how big an area that CarFest covers. There are trade stalls, car clubs showing their cars, a display arena, Silverstone Auctions are here with some interesting lots, there is a Monster Truck kitted out for passenger rides, a fun fair and a stage for the evenings entertainment. The One Show is broadcast live on the Friday night followed by live music.

The main event of CarFest is the hill climb. This year it has been extended to make it more exciting for the drivers and spectators. This year the cars going on the hill climb are grouped into sevens. 

There are Seven Iconic Cars, Seven Historic F1 Cars, Seven Anniversary Aston Martins, The Gorgeous Seven, Le Mans Seven, Unusual Seven, Super Car Seven, World Rally Championship Seven and last but by no means least, The Motorsport Seven

Walking past a huge drag racing car and a Top Gear Simulator we walk towards the paddock where the cars taking the hill climb on are kept. as some of the cars are still warming up for the hill climb and getting used to the course. I see two people that are working on Jody Scheckter's F1 cars. They are then joined by Jody Scheckter. He has a chat, has photos taken and gives autographs to those that ask. He then jumps into his Ferrari and does his warm up of the hill climb. 

After watching the last of the warm ups, it is decided that we should have a wonder around and look at the cars before grabbing some lunch and finding a good spot to watch the hill climb.

Walking around there are lots of owners clubs such as Jaguar, TVR and Lotus. There is an area of the iconic Group B Rally cars. In another stand I spot a Bugatti Veyron. There is also a charity rides stand where you can donate money to have a passenger ride on the hill climb in a supercar. 

Silverstone auctions face a vast array of vehicles that they are selling. They include a Renault van that is disguised as a Ferrari van, a Pontiac GTO a Ford Thunderbird and many more.

It's time to stop for lunch, we eat the produce from the farm, organic burger and chips with salad and it's delicious. After washing that down with some cold water we then try the beer and it's not bad. 

We then grab our spot for the hill climb and look forward to seeing the cars do battle with the course and there are some great cars here today.

What amazes me is that most of the drivers do not hold back, they really do go for it. One that did not was in a Lambroghini. The driver was trying to demonstrate the noise and speed of the car came slowly to the first bend revving the car tried to launch the car and stalled it. This gave the crowd a bit of a laugh but I expect the driver was red faced. 

The most aggressively driven cars were the rally cars and the old F1 cars. They really went for it so taking photos of these in action was not easy.

There were also cars from Jaguar, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Bugatti, Ford. Mercedes Benz, Rools Royce, McLaren, Howmet, Porsche, Koenigsegg and some home made cars that took the form of a bed and a shed.

Taking all of the action in you can't forget about he noise. All of the cars sounded great, the loudest being the F1 cars closely followed by the Le Mans cars.

They sounded great at full power. The strangest engine sound for me came from the Lexus LFA. It has a high pitch wine but it was not very loud.

Once the 63 cars had gone up the hill climb, some people left, some went to the the stage to get a good vantage point for the evenings entertainment, I waited for the paddock to open. Once opened you are free to walk around the cars, take photos and chat to the owners or drivers. We lstop at a Lambroghini Muira to admire it and take some photos. A man approaches me and asks what I think of the car. I tell him that it's beautiful and that one day I would like to own one. The man is the owner of the car and we then chat in detail about the Muira. He then asks if I would like to sit in it. How could I refuse. Once inside I find the driving position and the seat to be comfortable, but very low,  the gearstick is easy to reach and the dash is easy to read. After a couple of minutes I get out and thank the owner. 

With that we finish walking around the paddock taking more photos and then it's time to call it a day.

Today has been a great event and has been well organised. Getting parked at the event and leaving the event has been easy and it has a great atmosphere. If you have children, they will not get bored as there is plenty that they can do.