MotorSport UK - A Good Idea

The idea of a motorsport show for club racers sounded a good idea. Did it work out in practice?

The idea of the show was to attract newcomers to motorsport and offer them a choice of entry level branches - us, 750, CSCC not to mention rallying, autotests, hovercraft. Other stands dealt with awnings, motorsport courses, helmets and racewear which wasn't MSA approved. Most tended to be at the budegt end of the spectrum, and certainly none the worse for that. However, not a show for you if you're uncertain what to do with your 250GTO, or even your Dallara.

As usual at shows, our stand looked very professional and with the flags could not easily be missed. Thanks to Jonathan and Simon, and to Doug and Eddie for two smart, pretty but not intimidating cars. One of the other stands was the MSA supported "GoMotorsport" initiative, and it was interesting to hear from them why single seaters are not regarded by them as an entry point and hence why they have nothing to do with us. Sadly, in the 8 hours Darren Freeman, Jonathan Baggott and myself were present on Saturday, we had a few friendly chats with people who had come to have a look round but were generally already committed competitors elsewhere, and just two newcomer enquiries of which only one was serious. The number of visitors was disappointing, though whether any were put off by the venue also hosting a football match I can't say. Hopefully there was more activity when Douglas Maclay, David Parkinson and Michael Dale took over on Sunday.

A couple of little snippets from the neighbouring stand may be of interest. In his "MotorsportAds.com" guise, the stand owner offered us some discount scratch cards for his advertising site, so email Startline if you would like one. Secondly, as a vendor of budget (but quite nice looking) helmets, he suggested that new manufacturers were entering the HANS market, to produce lower priced full range devices to compete with Schroth and Stand21, the current sole manufacturers. He believed that they would manufacture all angles of device, since the more reclined single seater is currently not catered for by the budget ranges.

The organiser visited us, and talked about a show next year. Hopefully it will succeed as a way of promoting participation in club level sport, and we can only wish the 2012 show good luck.

Tony Cotton

Disclaimer: The above represents only the unofficial view of the writer and not of the Monoposto Racing Club in any way whatsover. Subheadlines and captions are not originated from the named author. We are unable to reproduce results due to copyright reasons. If any pictures are copyright and the owner wishes them removed please email us.