The main soapbox event may have been ninety-one miles further north (at Alexandra Palace), but that didn’t stop Goodwood from putting on its own Soapbox racing spectacle.

More than 25 Soapbox racers made a welcome return to this year’s 20th anniversary Festival of Speed, showcasing the finest, strangest and most astutely engineered vehicles to ever grace the 1.16-mile hillclimb.

The gravity racing formula ran at Goodwood between 2000 and 2004, making it one of the most hotly contested challenges in the event’s 20 year history.

Goodwood-Festival-of-Speed-Soapbox-racer_G13

  • Goodwood-Festival-of-Speed-Soapbox-racer_G5
  • Goodwood-Festival-of-Speed-Soapbox-racer_G4
  • Goodwood-Festival-of-Speed-Soapbox-racer_G2
  • Goodwood-Festival-of-Speed-Soapbox-racer_G8

The rules were simple – a maximum weight of 165kg (including the driver), total cost no greater than £1,000 and maximum dimensions of 170cm long and 75cm wide.

This year’s competitors pulled out all the stops, with the winner being.. the 185,000 people who watched the spectacle.