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Young “Jitty” contributor Charlie, managed to win a set of tickets to the world’s largest dedicated motorsport exhibition, Autosport International, courtesy of Haymarket Exhibitions Ltd in conjunction with Sports Reports. The show ran over the weekend of the 13th and 14th of January, with Charlie visiting on the Sunday with the assistance of Leicestershire Youth Workers; Tony Gregory (Mountfields Lodge), James Hunter and Craig Lewis (both from The Jitty).

The NEC was certainly impressive, and was about the only venue capable of containing such a massive show that covers virtually all areas of motorsport, from Karting to Formula One, and from the weekend club racer to professional organisations and companies. Within the huge sprawling halls, somewhere in the region of 70,000 public visitors over the weekend were unleashed on approximately 800 stands showing everything from safety helmets to the latest unveiling of X-Works Automotive’s Mitsubishi Evo-engined concept car, the X1 (of which our photographs are now circulating on the internet!).

On his visit to the show, Charlie managed to meet with Matt Neal, who’s racing pedigree can be summed up recently as follows;

2006
British Touring Car Championship - Team Halfords - Honda Integra Type R
1st position, 8 wins

2005
British Touring Car Championship - Team Halfords - Honda Integra Type R
1st position, 6 wins

…and also with the legendary Nicky Grist, who’s calm manner and excellent co-driver skills helped the likes of Colin McCrae and Juha Kankkunen to victory in the World Rally Championship.

In Hall 20, 990m² was to be the home for an impressive Le Mans display, with cars on display that were worth in excess of £20million. If that wasn’t enough motor sport legends such as Derek Bell were re-united with their cars.

Every corner at the event would unveil something new, and the first two hours of Charlie’s visit flew by, after which we realised we had only seen about a fifth of the exhibition! Undeterred, we carried on, with Charlie having the opportunity to climb in out of some of the cars on display (with permission of course!), and having the chance to drive in some of the simulators too.

At the show there were also a number of opportunities highlighted where young people could get into motorsport, such as BR Racing’s RST Rally Academy (“Youth into Motorsport”), Ginetta’s Junior Race Series, and even the Society of Automotive Engineers explaining their work and trying to encourage young people into engineering.

All in all, Charlie enjoyed himself, but on the downside, the show is so large that one day really isn’t enough to get round all of the exhibitions and see the live shows too.

By Hunter
15/01/06