National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham |
The 2005 Autosports show at the National Exhibition Centre was eagerly anticipated as it was the first event of the 2005 season after a lengthy lay-off since early November. In truth, by the time of the Flame & Thunder event at Santa Pod in early November, there had been little action on the strip for a couple of months. The Autosport Show, now a tradition in most racer's calendar, is the event that breathes a breath of inspiration into the lungs of those of us who hate the dark times over winter, craving for action. The show was to provide us that with, perhaps, a little less burning rubber than we are familiar with at the race track!
The show ran from Thursday 13th to Sunday the 16th January and due to a number of factors, we were only able to make it on the Saturday and Sunday. This year I travelled to the show with former FIA Top Fuel Champion Barry Sheavills and assisted the innovative fansfueler project with producing pictures and material from the show as it progressed. It has to be said that the project appears to be making excellent progress and interest in the project just seems to be growing and growing. Incoming fans pledges are driving the project forward and all the best of luck to Barry and the Team with the project and here's hoping for an early return to the track!
It was good to see the drag racing contingent out in force and particularly so on the most impressive Santa Pod stand. Trakback's Rick Cuthbert was ever cheerful and seemed to have an endless task just to keep the leaflet stands populated with brochures. He and the other members of the Santa Pod team toiled tirelessly over the weekend to keep all visitors entertained with the latest from European drag racing and Santa Pod in particular. Featured on the Santa Pod stand were multiple themed Santa Pod vehicles. Gordon Smith's nitro funny car was in situ thinly disguised on Hoosier Top Alcohol tyres and was standing adjacent to the Junior Dragster of SPRC which attracted huge interest from the younger contingent. Over to the right of the stand was Martin Hill's Fireforce Jet funny car which looked simply beautiful in its Santa Pod paintwork, first seen at the Flame and Thunder event last November. Over the other side of the stand was Top Fuel dragster of 2001 & 2004 FIA Top Fuel champion Andy Carter who had his full crew in attendance. Andy was bubbling over with confidence, as usual, and was proudly displaying the colours of outgoing sponsor Go-Talk whilst still seeming primary sponsorship for this year. It was good to see him and old adversary Barry Sheavills having a laugh and posing for a few pictures. Talking of posing for a few pictures - I began to wonder whether there would ever be an end to the number of attractive (and young) maidens that seem to have the acquaintance of Barry Sheavills! Just leaving the show on the Sunday afternoon took an hour and a half of hugs!
The following gallery is chosen from over 500 pictures and hopefully gives a reasonably balanced view of what was going on. Can you recognise everybody? Enjoy the show!
