Goodwood Disaster Avoided After Jaguar’s Loose Wheel Bounces Into Crowd
Nobody was seriously injured, but the video is a stomach-dropper.
This year's Goodwood Festival of Speed hillclimb nearly took a dark turn when a wheel fell off a competitor's car and bounced into the crowd. However, the organization has confirmed no serious injuries were sustained in the accident, and that racing will continue.
The incident occurred when the 1959 Jaguar Mark 1 driven by Grant Williams took to the course. Williams lit up the Jaguar's rear end with an exuberant start, leaving tire smoke at the start line and drifting the first corner. That may have been due to an issue with the car's rear end though, because his slide through turn two resulted in the Jaguar's left rear wheel separating from the car. It bounced over the barriers and into the crowd before the camera cut away, as is standard practice for serious racing accidents. In the worst-case scenario, it could mean someone (if not multiple people) were seriously injured or killed.
However, Goodwood confirmed the best possible outcome on Twitter, stating, "there were no serious injuries and those involved were able to go back to enjoying the event."
Cases of wheels exiting the track have been a common source of bystander casualties throughout the history of motorsport. Loose wheels continue to be a problem in 2023, with this year's Indianapolis 500 narrowly avoiding its own disaster when a racer's wheel bounced out of the track, and destroyed a spectator's car. (Her vehicle was later replaced by Chevrolet.) The danger of loose wheels has led to tethers being mandatory in many top-level racing series, such as Formula 1.
This isn't the first ill-fated run at the Goodwood Hillclimb this year either, as Hyundai suffered the embarrassment of its high-tech RN22e prototype crashing violently. That too resulted in no injuries, but this year's event is a chaotic one so far—so let's hope the Jaguar's misadventure is the last thing Goodwood will give us to worry about.
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