Saturday 18th September 1948

The first race meeting took place at the Goodwood race circuit, West Sussex, England organised by the Junior Car Club and sanctioned by the Duke of Richmond and Gordon. The winner of the first race was P. de F. C. Pycroft, in his 2,664 c.c. Pycroft-Jaguar, at 66.42 m.p.h. Stirling Moss won the 500cc race (later to become Formula 3), followed by Eric Brandon and “Curly” Dryden, all in Coopers. The race lasted only three laps but he won by 25.8 seconds. Dudley Folland, in a single-seater MG K3, took the Madgwick Cup for Formula 2 cars.The highlight was the five-lap race for another new category; Formula One. Reg Parnell’s latest model Maserati 4CLT/48 was pressed hard by Bob Gerard’s pre-war ERA but Parnell won by four-tenths of a second, even though Gerard set the fastest lap, leaving with the outright lap record at 1’42.8″, 83.39mph. A total of 10,478 paid at the gates, 1,000 club members also entered and an estimated 3,000 sneaked in.
Goodwood became famous for its Glover Trophy non-championship Formula One race, Goodwood Nine Hours sports car endurance races run in 1952, 1953 and 1955, and the Tourist Trophy sports car race, run between 1958 and 1964. The cars that raced in those events can be seen recreating (in shorter form) the endurance races at the Goodwood Revival each year in the Sussex Trophy and the Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy (RAC TT).