Drifters scream death to all tyres at 2025 Festival of Speed

At the head of the ‘Catch My Drift’ class is Mad Mike Whiddett with his twin-turbo, four-rotor Mazda FD RX-7 'HUMBUL'. Mike has been a Goodwood regular for more than a decade, sending up smoke signals visible from space with his unhinged sideways antics. It’s surprising he needs a windscreen at all as he spends so much time looking out of the side windows. 

Steve Biagioni has been on the Hill with his tyre-shredding Nissan GTR, too, as has James Deane in his Ford Mustang RTR. Both of these gents are no strangers to the Festival of Speed and, like Mike, they have an incredible ability to drift a car one-handed for the duration of their Hill runs. 

Chris Forsberg has brought along an absolute beauty this year, the Nissan ‘Altimaniac’. As the name suggests it’s a Nissan Altima on a sugar high, with a 4.1-litre, twin-turbo V6 producing 2,000PS (1,491kW). Ryan Tuerck, meanwhile, has returned with his Toyota Stout drift truck fitted with a turbocharged four-cylinder from the old Toyota Celica GT4 tuned to deliver more than 600PS (441kW).

The final drifter is Axel Hildebrand, who may have brought along the coolest drift car of the weekend. That’s a bold claim, but his Volvo 740 is absolutely wild, with a PPRE triple-rotor engine fitted with a Garrett G45-1500 turbocharger sending many, many tires to heaven, painfully tickling ear drums across the whole estate as it slides around. 

The 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed is underway! You can watch every moment of the action by watching our livestream.

Photography by Toby Whales and Jordan Butters.