Friendly 'Chaos' at Goodwood as 350-strong field vies for National Closed Circuit TT

Riders are travelling from as far afield as Austin, TX to make up the bumper field for Sunday's RTTC National Closed Circuit Championship time trial, which is yet again one of the most popular events on the entire time trial racing calendar.

A total 350 riders are set to take the start line at the Goodwood motor circuit in West Sussex, for a variety of events including the 'One lap wonder' and a four-person relay that has been dubbed 'The Chaos'.

In the face of some very low entries in recent years, this huge field demonstrates how popular time trialling still is – on both road and time trial bikes – when there is a friendly, traffic free venue to ride at. That's despite a £30 entry fee – considerably more than a standard open entry of around £15.

There are also events for 'Heritage Bikes' and 'Cherished Machines', with the former seeing a small group of carbon monocoque riders aboard bikes including the Lotus 110 that was made famous by Chris Boardman, and an example of the Hotta that Richard Prebble used to win the National '25'.

Among the Lotus pilots is US rider Stephen McCaskie, from Austin. He heard about the event, and with opportunities to race similar "UCI bandit bikes" as he calls them, was eager to come over and race.

Other machines in what promises to be a fascinating slice of cycling nostalgia will be a Raleigh Dynatech, a 1948 fixed wheel bike, and a 1988 Peugeot 753 lo-pro – ridden by CTT chair Andrea Parish.

"We have nothing in the US that comes close to the CTT program," he told event organiser David Collard-Berry of a3CRG, "let alone Heritage Bikes or the opportunity to ride Goodwood."

Collard-Berry has considerable experience in promoting events at this historic venue, having run an annual summer series there for some years.

The circuit race was held last year at the Croft circuit in the north-east and before that Thruxton in Hampshire, and attracts consistently high numbers.

Part of this is that there is not a cap on entry numbers, says Collard-Berry. But they're friendly events too.

"Mum, dad, girlfriend, boyfriend, they can stand there above the top of the pit lane and watch them as they go past, cheer them on," he says. "Where we do the start at Goodwood, they stand almost at the start line to cheer them on as they go off.

"It's a friendly atmosphere – it's not like racing on the A3," he adds.

The day's main dish is of course the title race for women and men, with newly crowned 25-mile champion Kate Allan leading a field of 46 women on both road and time trial bikes. Her Team Bottrill team-mates Emily Martin and Alex Clay, who claimed silver and bronze in the '25' also ride, as does multiple former national champion Hayley Simmonds (Doltcini O'Shea), who is also the current competition record holder at 10 and 25 miles.

In the men's race last year's circuit champs bronze medallist Alex Pickering (Elysium Kalas) lines up against a host of local talent, including hotly tipped Jamie Whitcher (Bournemouth Cycleworks) and James Jenkins (Hart Performance), whose 17.28 10-mile qualifying time makes him the fastest rider on paper.

There are also healthy entries in the junior, youth and para-cycling / hand-cycling races. Each event is 10 miles in length – amounting to four-and-a-bit laps of the circuit, except the youths who ride 7.6 miles.