Goodwood 1 November 2025

THE SWIFTUNE 60 SPRINT supported by SU Carburettors

Goodwood Motor Circuit

Saturday 1 November 2025

Another different late-season event gave us an excuse to return to the Goodwood Motor Circuit, the iconic historic racing venue in West Sussex. As a top-line racing circuit, Goodwood closed in 1966 before being reopened to host the current Revival and Members’ Meetings from 1998, but our previous visits had all been during its “closed” years when it hosted regular club sprint meetings. It was even an oval racing venue at one time, briefly being the home of SEGTO club SAA.

We’d not been back since the “official” re-opening of the circuit, mainly because its current events are rather too commercialised, crowded, expensive and celebrity-orientated for our tastes! However, the opportunity to rediscover the venue at a friendly grass-roots event was too good to miss.

Leading Mini engine preparation specialists Swiftune had, in previous years, hosted end of season midweek trackdays for their customers at Goodwood, but this year they’d celebrate the 60^th anniversary of Swiftune’s creation (by the much missed Glyn Swift) by promoting a proper timed all-Mini Sprint meeting. A lot of work by current Swiftune supremo Nick and his daughter Georgie led up to a well attended and slickly run event that Mini enthusiasts would very much like to see become an annual occasion.

The intention was, for Swiftune’s 60^th birthday, to assemble a record turnout of 60 Pre-66 FIA Appendix K Minis. Without quite reaching this level, a nonetheless very impressive turnout of the ever more popular historic racers was supplemented by an Invitation class that brought out a number of interesting crowd pleasing A-Series powered-entries.

Although there were a few other potentially eligible cars on show in the paddock that didn’t make it onto the circuit (some had seen action in a track day on Friday), there were eventually 33 cars out in the Pre-66 class, with 42 drivers (five were double-driven and two were triple-driven) and 13 cars in the invitation class with 16 drivers. The total of 58 entries was plenty for this time of year, with a 4 pm curfew to work to before the light began to fade.

What really helped was an unexpected bright sunny day. Most forecasts had shown showers all day long, but a really wild, wet and windy, night cleared leaving a slippery track, with a few puddles that dried as the day went on. It also helped that, despite the majority of the drivers being racers who weren’t necessarily used to Sprints, with no time to warm tyres and brakes (actually brakes don’t often come into play in a Mini round Goodwood!) there was a minimum of incidents to cause delays to the scheduled one practice run and three timed runs.

Each run was a full lap, starting from the pit lane with the finish just giving time to slow up before the track exit past the pits. Practice started promptly at 9 am and, although the intention was to let off batches of four cars, at roughly 20 second intervals, it was soon clear that the morning session could finish rather early, so this was reduced to two cars on track at a time, through practice and the first timed runs. After an extended lunch break, when all the completing cars were lined up on the grid for a photo session, which became a busy social gathering as everyone enjoyed the sunshine, the pace was stepped up a bit for the afternoon runs, returning to 3 or 4 cars at a time. Unfortunately, just as the third runs started, a couple of quick rain showers intervened, causing a few on-track recoveries to be needed. It was clear that nobody was going to improve times after that, so only around half the entries completed the third run. That meant the event could be wound up and the array of very original SU-themed trophies presented, comfortably before 4 pm.

With the practice times headed for a while by the spectacular run of regular Pre-66 race winner Nathan Heathcote, most closely challenged by such well known names as Adam Morgan, Aaron Smith, Bill Sollis, Nick Swift himself and Phil Bullen-Brown, right at the end of practice the Invitation class cars came into their own, with Mini Miglia Champion Rupert Deeth going quickest, soon to be pipped by young Declan Edgecombe, with his brother Kieran just behind, sharing the family’s newly rebuilt Miglia car.

In the first timed runs, the Miglias, running on wets on the cold and slippery track, couldn’t match the top Historics, with Nick Swift topping the times from Adam Morgan. Nick marginally improved his time after lunch and remained at the top of the list until right at the end of the session, Rupert, now running on slicks, had his run interrupted by a car collecting the chicane in front of him. With a tiny bit of warmth now in his tyres, Rupert’s rerun saw him shave just under a second off Nick’s time to secure Fastest Time of the Day. The third run times clearly weren’t going to see anyone improve on that, although there was a good performance by Nigel Fraser Ker in his pre-66 car to go fastest overall on that run.

As well as the overall win, Rupert Deeth was obviously winner of the Invitation class, with Chris Watkinson taking second in his 1380 racer, usually seen in the CSCC’s “Swinging Sixties” and similar series. The Edgecombe twins were as close as ever in third and fourth, Kieran just beating Declan.

Rupert jumped straight from his Miglia into his Alan Curnow Datapost-replica 1275GT, taking fifth despite a gear selection problem bringing him to a halt on his second run. Another 1275GT in the class was Ryck Turner’s Jim Burrows tribute car, while Ryck was another of the busier drivers, running his regular Pre-66 car although his newly acquired ex-Andrew Jordan Miglia didn’t make it.

The class also featured Paul Cobbing, having his first competitive outing in the silver ex-Rupert Deeth Miglia, local Fastest Mini in the World regular Francesca Roodhouse, sharing her 1380 racer with her dad Rob; former Mini Libre champ Peter Crewes’ Britax-liveried 8-porter, Mike Edwards’ mainly Sprint/Hillclimb 1380, Tony Murray and the rally car of Jack Stewart. Two non-Mini entries were the Sprite shared by Max and Garrow Shand, well-known speed event competitors, and the car that won the “coolest car” trophy, Ian Medcalf’s spaceframe Fiat 500, which we believe to be the famous Peter Day car, originally raced with the two-cylinder Gordon Allen “half a BDA” engine, but now with Swiftune 1380 power.

Fastest in the Pre-66 class, Nick Swift “disqualified” himself from the trophy results, so first place, with only a fractionally slower time than Nick, went to multiple Miglia champ Aaron Smith, sharing his historic racer as usual with Piers Thynne. Ex-Rallycross champion Nathan Heathcote took second and current BTCC driver Adam Morgan was third in the car he shares with father Russell. Mini Seven Racing Club President Bill Sollis was fourth, from Matthew Page, with the Page family’s surviving Pre-66 car shared three ways with brother Jonathan and father Giles. Phil Bullen-Brown was the only other driver to put in a run under the 100 second mark.

Other prominent entries included Kieran and Declan Edgecombe, sharing their regular car in this class as well as the Miglia. Another name familiar in both Mini Seven Racing Club and Autograss circles is Dan Lewis, using his familiar Pre-66 racer, while one who’d recently graduated from the Autograss ranks was West Wales driver Mark Uka.

Nick Swift’s “Willow 3” was another with three drivers; Guy Sheppard and Claude Cassina, switching from his planned entry, both put the car in the top twelve. Classic Touring Car Champion Barry Sime was another to be sharing his car with his father, Jimmy, as was Aimée Watts, with her father, 1979 Mini Seven Champion Patrick, just managing to beat Aimée’s best time by a fraction. These were just a few of the well known Mini racing names in the entry.

Adding variety to the Pre-66 entry were Nick Paddy, well up in the top ten with his popular Mini Van, and Neil McArthur, with his familiar Wolseley Hornet. Further down the order, but winning an award for his efforts, was Marc Sydow, who’d brought his “Morris Mini Minor” badged car direct to the meeting from Germany. And we can’t overlook Mark Burnett, going well in the car he shares in longer races with Scott Kendall, as it was Mark’s support through SU Carburettors that made a big contribution to the event happening, as well as under the bonnets of the majority of the cars.

Altogether it proved an excellent event; a very welcome end of season gathering for Mini racers and supporters, and a rare chance to enjoy Goodwood in a relaxed setting. We hope to see it repeated!