Autosport International Show
January 21, 2010 Uncategorized
Last week I made the trip over to the NEC in Birmingham to have a look around the Autosport show, Europes largest trade dedicated motorsport exhibition. Now in its 20th year the show attracts all the super stars and their cars from F1 to World Rallying.
There was also a specific motorsport engineering hall with all the latest equipment and technologies available form the worlds leading manufacturers.It was a lot to take in in one day but I came home loaded with ideas and plenty of info about some cool new parts I can use in the re build of my Corolla.
I managed to get a few pics of some of my show favourites, no prizes for guessing my next favourite motorsport to drifting !
My favorite WRC car, the WRC99 spec 3 door Impreza seen here in its Safari Rally set up.
The Peugeot 207 rally car that Chris Meeke won the 2009 IRC with.Chris actually drove in a round of the Prodrift series back in ‘08 and did pretty good for his first ever drift event.He also teaches at a rally school here in Ireland and I’ve been lucky enough to be instructed by him once in a fully prepped impreza. Unfortunately he crashed out of the opening round of the IRC today in Monte Carlo when he hit ice, no doubt he’ll be back kicking ass at round 2 in Brazil.
Some of the old Group B rally cars were also on display and even though its some 25 years since they were developed they still draw a crowd alongside the most modern machines.Possibly my favorite era of motorsport, these things pushed the boundaries so much that the Group A and WRC regulations were brought in to slow things down a bit !. If like me you were too young to ever see them in action, check out some online footage and turn it up loud !
Although the UK drifting scene hasn’t got the same level of machinery as Formula D in the states, the UK time attack series certainly has some cars that could compete at world level.The Roger Clark Motorsport Impreza won the title in 2008 and is my favorite car in the series, there has been some great on board footage online and its well worth checking out.The driver Olly Clark is not afraid to use all the 500+ hp to get it loose !
There were a number of F1 cars present and of course the UK’s Jenson Button’s Brawn GP Championship winning car took pride of place.Its nice to get up close with these cars and check out that rear diffuser that basically gave Brawn GP such an advantage early in the season they had the championship wrapped up.
Finally, a pic of the craziest race simulator I have ever seen !.I could have sworn that if this one kid wasn’t strapped in when he took a hit on the track he would have been catapulted clean out of there. There was a big line to get a few laps in this thing but I had a flight to catch back to Dublin, next time !
