2020zoom On The Road

Autosport International 2008

It’s the second week of the New Year: time for motor sport's curtain raiser to the forthcoming season, the Autosport International show 2008 at the NEC. We’re on the motorway before 7.00am to avoid the congestion that normally chokes the M42 in the mornings. As luck would have it, traffic’s light so we arrive even before the media centre opens. After receiving our media passes we fuel up on cups of hot chocolate and bacon rolls before waiting by the hall doors ready for the scramble.

First stop for us is the F1 display to get some photos of this before it’s swamped with admirers. Rather than the grid replica that they’ve gone for in the past, this year is slightly different as we get to see the various F1 cars standing outside their respective pit workshops. It’s a formidable display of Formula 1 machinery. They must have such fun putting this display together and it never disappoints.

Mid morning and we head for the huge Prodrive stand to get pole position for the unveiling of the new Subaru Impreza N14. Prodrive Chairman David Richards is in fine form as he introduces the car along with the new Aston Martin that will represent Prodrive at this year’s Le Mans 24-hour race. The other ace up Prodrive’s sleeve is the building of the new Impreza group N rally car live on the stand. The mechanics start the build at 11.00am and a constant crowd monitors the car’s progress as the guys toil away at it. It’s done and dusted by mid afternoon with apologies that they’re not allowed to run the engine. Great work guys.

As usual, there is a vast diversity of stands catering for many different types of motor sport. Many of the stands are brilliantly designed and the work involved in assembling them must be immense. Some of the more lavish efforts come from Seat, Mitsubishi, Pirelli, Kumho Tyres and Demon Tweaks.

There’s a large display in association with Motoring News celebrating fifty years of touring cars. We strike lucky upon our second visit to this area when we catch Tom Chiltern being interviewed by Sky Sport. There’s almost no one around: just Tom, the interviewer, a bloke holding the camera and us. We take a number of pictures while the interview goes ahead and then Tom obligingly poses for us afterwards. What a guy!

Obviously, I can’t complete this review without mentioning the promo girls. The Pirelli ladies, the Kumho Tyre babes (once again, doing sterling work collecting for the air ambulance), the Systems Store Solutions girls, Seat's bevvy of beauties, the Simoniz blonde, Mrs Oakley Design, the Funcup girlies, Miss see-through Saxmax and the Mitsubishi wenches, we thank you all for posing for us, for being fun and friendly and we salute you for tolerating the dozens of spotty teens who insisted on perving you and taking pictures of you with their poxy mobile phone cameras while the rest of us were trying to do our jobs.

Oh, and Helen from the Autosport stand who finally manages to sell us a magazine subscription after a year of trying. What a great lady and what a sales woman.

Finally, thanks to everyone at the show for making it such an enjoyable day out. See you all next year.