I've never been too sure about nostalgia. I mean really, is it all that it's supposed to have been or is just the effects of aging upon decaying memory cells? Or maybe it's Alzheimer's? Certainly, as we don the rose-tinted glasses of middle-age and peer back through the haze of life into the "halcyon days of our youth", it's easy to convince ourselves that things really were better and simpler when we were younger. And maybe they were. Well, there certainly weren't any personal computers around then, and names like Norton, BSA and Triumph ruled the UK motorbike scene, with frames made out of bent pieces of tubing, engines cooled by air and with 4-star petrol fed into their cylinders by things called carburetors. We watched spellbound on black & white TV as the U.S.A. attempted to land men on the moon, and dialled long-distance calls using STD codes, but at the same time we tried not to think too much about the Cold War that threatened to exterminate us all. So it wasn't quite all wine and roses.

Whatever you may think, there's no getting away from the fact that the love of things gone-by, when life was supposedly simpler seems to be a great attraction these days, and everyone will tell you how stressed-out they are by the pace of modern technology-driven living. But just a minute. I can also remember my parents telling me that things were so much simpler when they were younger, so is this just a "generation-thing"?Maybe it is, but the difference today is that we have the "experts" and the technology to prove it, and therefore it must be true! Certainly in the field of race-engineering, the carbon-fibre composites, finite element analysis, extruded alloy beams, computer-aided design and engine management systems are a million miles away from the materials and engineering technology of the 50s and 60s. Back then, aerodynamics was something that made aeroplanes fly!

In the postwar years when I was growing up (that's the second world war - not the first, or the Boer war!) and beginning my fixation with the internal combustion engine and motorsport in general, Goodwood Circuit was amongst the premier race tracks in the UK. Although it never got to stage a Grand Prix meeting, its events would attract the great motor racing names of its time, such as Fangio, Mike Hawthorn, Jim Clark, John Surtees and Graham Hill, and some of the most exotic race machinery of the time would compete around the 2.4 mile circuit. It became famous for the RAC Tourist Trophy and the 9-hour sports car race, although it also achieved notoriety for bringing Stirling Moss' competitive racing career to an untimely end after his crash at St Marys in 1962.

Goodwood first opened its gates for a race meeting back in September 1948 when England was still recovering from the effects of the Second World War. Based around the perimeter road of the Tangmere's satellite Westhampnett airfield, it staged hundreds of race meetings right up until August 1966 when it finally succumbed to the old equation of increasing vehicle speeds vs. spectator safety. For the next thirty years it only existed as a venue for testing, track days and car sprints, until in 1998 after years of planning meetings and safety discussions, it reopened to run the first of the annual race meetings for the cars and bikes that originally raced on its tarmac. Since then the Goodwood Revival Meeting, now in its ninth year, has gone from strength to strength.

Back in the early 1990s I used to compete in car sprints at Goodwood in my Westfield, and although I never really got to grips with the circuit and won my class, it had a great layout with some really challenging corners. It also had some extremely dodgy pieces of tarmac in places, very limited run-off areas and a truly awful potholed gravel paddock area that took on the appearance of the Somme after a rain-soaked session. What a difference a few years and some serious expenditure can make! The track surface is now proper race-quality, although it still looks like there's a few undulations in the supposedly flat bits (but that's not a problem as the race vehicles in the 50s and 60s had suspension that moved!), the corners have run-off areas, gravel traps and tyre barriers, and there's even an earth bank with spectator and vehicle access all around the circuit. The paddock has been concreted and tarmac'd over, with roofed areas for the vehicles, and the pitlane garages and race control buildings have been rebuilt to their original design. The result is an interesting mixture of modern track features and "olde-worlde" circuit design, all mixed in with the heady aroma of Castrol-R.

For lovers of "real" racing machinery there was plenty to see, and while the majority was of the four-wheeled variety, there was also a goodly contingent of motorbikes there with two bike races over the three day event.

Before his untimely death in 2003, the bike races at the Goodwood Revival Meetings were the scenes of some epic scraps between Barry Sheene and his old mate Wayne Gardner.

This year, in the first of the two appropriately renamed 8-lap Barry Sheene Memorial Trophy Races, from pole position Gardner simply romped away from the rest of the field on his Matchless G50, crossing the line just over 23 seconds ahead of Duncan Fitchett's Manx Norton 500 on a track that was decidedly damp and greasy. Niall Mackenzie, in his first "old-timers" race on another Manx Norton 500 finished in a very creditable fourth place, while Michael Rutter on an out-classed Honda CR450 could only manage ninth.

For the second race on Sunday track conditions hadn't improved to any great extent, but whether through tougher competition, embarrassment, or simply because he was sandbagging this time around, Wayne Gardner made much more of a battle of it, only moving into the lead during the sixth lap and winning by a mere 2.5 seconds.

But it was the cars that most of the people came for, and there was something for just about every petrolhead to drool over. From the pre-war racing cars of Alta, Bugatti, Maserati, ERA, Maybach and Alfa Romeo to the more "modern" ones like the Ford GT40, Lola-Chevrolet, Ferrari 250LM, Lotus, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Cooper and McLaren. Nearly every one was in pristine condition and in spite of the fact that each was near enough priceless, the racing was just as hard and as fast as it was when these cars were new. In fact, given that they have all benefited from modern tyre technology, the action was probably faster now than it was when these cars were first raced.

And if that wasn't enough, there were also some excellent flying displays by eight Spitfires and two Mustangs to keep you entertained between the other thirteen car races.

So there you have the Goodwood Revival Meeting. If you've got a hankering for anything on wheels and driven by an internal combustion engine being raced to within an inch of its rev-limit, and prefer your races to be won by riders and drivers extracting the absolute maximum from their machinery without the aid of computers and "pit-lane strategies", then Goodwood is the place for you at the beginning of September. But if you want to be there in 2007 you'd better book your tickets soon. Check out www.goodwood.co.uk for next year's event.

This year everything was sold out months in advance and there were no tickets available on the days of the meeting. I went with some friends for the whole three days, we camped at the Goodwood Horse Racing Course and had a grandstand ticket for each day and it cost me around £190. Not cheap, but compare that to doing the same thing at Silverstone or Brands for a major race meeting and it starts to look like good value for money. And in my book the racing is much, much better.

DH