AUTOSPORT SHOW, NEC, 8-11 JANUARY 2009

Once again our friendly insurance brokers at work provided me with a ticket to Autosport International, The Racing Car Show. Taking cognisance of Dermot’s advice about traffic and car parks, I “let the train take the strain. Ironic that travel by car can be the worst way to see cars.

In the past there haven’t been too many Mono eligible (or near) cars at the show, but it was a bit different this year. Bluntly, it was all a bit less glitzy, a bit more down to earth. I think there were fewer stands, spread out a bit more, and fewer big, spectacular stands (usually from tyre companies) where the reaction used to be “what was all that about then?” Evidence for the reduction in stands was the inclusion of a “Pistonheads” area. Pistonheads is apparently an Interweb Magazine for those who believe Jeremy Clarkson is a Journalist who can drive, think an Audi R8 looks best with pearlescent paint and would aspire to a Pagani Zonda before a Transit, a Dallara, a Cayman and £300k change.

Further evidence of the Crunch was the feature stands of F1 cars (just cars, no fancy pit garages this year) and the historical exhibition. 2 years ago this was a celebration of glorious LeMans vehicles. This year it was the development of the Porsche 911; superb, reliable, and the nearest thing to a practical supercar, but not exactly breathtaking. More what you might expect at Stoneleigh. In fairness, there was also a display of beautiful cars of the F1 Champions over the last 50 years, but it's a sign of how spoilt we are as historic enthusiasts that they were pretty much similar to the pits at the midsummer Classic Silverstone. As for the Coys Auction cars, words fail me. A clubbie Curborough usually has nicer stuff.

This isn’t to criticise; I found it as interesting as in previous years and enjoyed it greatly. One trend I noticed was that historic racing seemed to be increasingly to the fore, and there seems to be a wish to involve young people in real motorsport. Autosport didn’t see fit to split their show into past, present, future, and, finally, sundry; so Startline will do it for them.

PAST

Good to see the tribute to David Coulthard. He seems a likeable type, and has had the bad luck in F1 to be in the right place at the wrong time. In addition to his Formula Ford, there was a Paul Stewart Vauxhall Lotus and RT35. All eligible for Mono. His F1 cars aren’t (sorry Tristan).

One interesting stand had a Ferrari F40 and McLaren F1 for sale. Both are often called the ultimate supercar. The owner was slightly upset when I heard a passing visitor call a Ferrari 250GTO replica he also had on the stand “a posh kit car”.

PRESENT

I was a bit surprised to learn that there’s still a British owned car industry besides the much loved Morgan. 2 makes were ones I had not seen before. The Farbio has a 350bhp, supercharged 3.0L V6 and looks like a proper supercar for £70k (or a 911.) Looking more traditional was the Melling Wildcat. Al Melling was the engine man for TVR, and this looks like a revamped TVR, presumably with the usual RoverV8-based TwinCam (allegedly).

FUTURE

There was a 1400cc Ginetta with (I assume) a mother and daughter. The girl, Sarah Moore, looked about 12, but was in fact all of 15 and had come second in the Ginetta Junior championship. Her aim is BTCC/saloons, and she had the sort of confidence and determination that indicate she’ll make it. Andy Priaulx, beware, and good luck to her for the 2009 Ginetta Junior championship.

We can’t race without marshals. So it was nice to talk to the British Motorsport Marshalls Club. She was delighted to hear about our initiative of donating a fleece to the marshalls at each of our meetings and explained to me that they were trying hard to recruit young marshals, and more to the point, are succeeding. To attract the very young at the weekend, Roary the Racing Car (an age 2-6 animation which includes a helicopter shaped like a teapot - what’s not to like?) was present. Again, good luck.

It seems odd to include a couple of 60-somethings in ‘the future” (no it doesn’t – this is Mono) but I’m going to. The first is Mono’s old friend John Corbyn. 2009 marks the 25th anniversary of the premiere of the Jedi single seater. I was there competing when it debuted at Loton Park hillclimb and it’s no exaggeration to say that the Jedi changed club motorsport as much as any car since Formula Ford was announced. Although it has been lengthened, strengthened and gained wings and an undertray, the suspension geometry is unchanged from car 001 which John debuted. He now owns it again, after a spell hillclimbing with Olivia Brown, sister of Mono’s Tom, and must surely be out in it this year. It’s a sobering thought to consider that 25 years further back, the Cooper Norton 500 was still current, and Mono had just been formed.

It could be argued that Ron Dennis is just as significant in Motorsport as John Corbyn. He was interviewed on the Autosport stage. I got my pen out so I didn’t forget the remark that he was pleased that “we have a sort of English World Champion”. Eh? Ron is clearly very proud of Lewis Hamilton, even if every time he says so he is deluged with letters from wannabes. However, he is also very pleased that McLaren rebuilt Heikki Kovalainen. “When he came to us, he was mentally destroyed”, said Ron. “I like to be able to give people confidence that they can achieve their potential.”

Although I have immense respect and admiration for Ron Dennis, he said that he felt F1 had gone beyond aerospace. Not being an engineer I can’t argue, but I’ve seen a Eurofighter Typhoon at Farnborough do physics-defying turns and F1 cars which in the British GP couldn’t stay on the track, a rather basic requirement for a car. F1 nil, aerospace 1, if you judge a product on how well it does its job. Asked about retirement, he replied that “seeing myself not being involved in McLaren is impossible.” (Though he sort of resigned the day I posted this.) Then a perceptive audience member asked about how he fought those 3am doubts when his honesty and integrity was questioned. He was very measured in what he said (doubtless mindful of litigation) but his comments (summarised here even though in quotes) were powerful. “You can’t hide from the truth. Sometimes it’s hurtful when, for example,somebody says something about you from the protection of a courtroom and you aren’t allowed to respond. But the truth will eventually come out, even if at times you have to pay a price for the truth. I believe that throughout all of the events, McLaren and myself have emerged with integrity.” I was convinced.

In the midst of this serious bit, how I wish I had my camera ready when Murray Walker poked his head over the balcony to see what the noise was and looked shocked to see Ron below. I’ll leave you to imagine that one.

AND FINALLY.....

For the rail-borne visitor, the Friday entrance is through the Engineering Hall, which finishes on Friday to be replaced by an “Oval Racing” hall. There are two categories of interesting stand here: the people who might be able to supply you with a bit in the future so you pick up a card or a catalogue (RaceParts, Trident,etc), and then what I call Engineering Porn. I’m sure that engineers don’t get excited by a CNC machined part, where the machine keeps changing the tool, a block of aluminium goes in and a machined part comes out. In fact I know that at least one ex-Mono racer has a factory full of such kit. But to an outsider, this stuff is amazing. The bridge is made by CadCam defining each section of the bridge and then the section is extruded onto the model.

Then there’s the metrology kit. Renishaw plc had a Zeiss 3-axis measuring machine which pushed one of their probes into a cylinder head to check dimensions. The very clever bit is the carbon probe which distorts minutely and then reflects a laser back to a sensor which both measures the movement and stops it wiggling about. As a result, a quick piece of programming can enable a cylinder head to be checked to tiny tolerances in a few minutes.

I’ve always put pictures of scantily clad pretty girls on Autosport reports and this year is no different. I was grumbling to my host from Aon that we hadn’t seen any when all of a sudden we came across the trio below left. As he said “Just like buses, you wait for a scantily clad girl to come along and then you get 3 all at once.” They’re supposed to be doing a “Charlie’s Angels” pose, and I had to look at this picture for a long time before deciding to include it.

And so finally, as I left, I was handed an Autsport branded goody bag which contained amongst other stuff 2 deodorants, soap, and sort of after shave. How well they know the hygeine habits of the motorsport fraternity. Or perhaps not, as there was also a drink made from hops which was neither beer nor alcoholic

Tony Cotton