By Jeff Glucker
The 2022 Goodwood Festival of Speed Shoutout has produced some remarkable footage. Most remarkable, however, is the fact that there’s a new record for the fastest time up the hill. Max Chilton has set a new top time of 39.08 and he’s done it in an electric car that uses fans to generate downforce.
The car is called the McMurtry Spéirling. This is a single-seat race car concept that uses a carbon fiber monocoque, two electric motors, and active aero to produce insane speeds. In the video above, it actually looks like the footage was sped up during Chilton’s run (which you can find around the 39-minute mark). It’s truly a wild machine. Especially considering it weighs under 2,200 pounds while generating double that in downforce.
A pair of fans can generate over 4,400 lbs of downward pressure while the car is sitting still. This thing quite literally sucks itself down to the ground, and that’s how Chilton can whip it up the Hillclimb course so quickly. What a truly wicked creation. And it’s a seriously impressive drive from Chilton as well.
By comparison, the old record was 41.6 seconds. That was achieved by Nick Heidfield in a McLaren MP4/13 Formula 1 car, back in 1999. Romain Dumas had broken the record in the electric Volkswagen ID.R but he did so during a practice run and not during the actual event.
That McMurtry lad hasn’t done too bad for a lad from Clontarf (a suburb of North Dublin)… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McMurtry
Adam Smalleys run was incredible, absolutely flat out. Travis Pastrana in an 80s subaru was pretty impressive too.
Not much 80s in that Subaru of Pastrana! I’ve only skimmed a bit of coverage so didn’t really note anything else specific other than Wayne Rainey was riding one of his old bikes despite being paralysed, which is pretty incredible!
They’ve posted the record run separately too – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JYp9eGC3Cc