Autosport International

Birmingham NEC

21 January 2023

Travelling over to the National Exhibition Centre just outside Birmingham for the Autosports Show used to be a traditional season opener for motorsports events for the photographers of the Pistonclick team. Well it was until the pandemic hit and large public events got shut down. Now that we are back to some sort of normality we were eager to return and see what had or had not changed at this, the best and biggest four wheel indoor motor show in the UK.

If you have not been to the show before it is spilt into four parts - The Autosport Show, Engineering Show, Performance Car Show and live action arena. These shows run for four days and are only open to the motorsports trade and media on Thursday and Friday.

Saturday and Sunday are for Joe public, so being one of the aforementioned, we went along to super Saturday as this has traditionally been when the big announcements and revivals are usually made.

Big announcements? I struggled to find any as there wasn't a in-depth running order for the main stage that I could find, and the website didn’t give much away. At previous events we had had World Rally reveals and top notch drivers on stage.

There were interviews going on, but as the show is large (but not as large as previous years) and if you want to see all of the exhibits during your visit you can't be hanging around the stage all day, so I probably missed the big reveals.   

I decided to go on the hunt for my own story and tracked down Michael "Jack" Russell. Jack featured in our Isle of Man report last year when he took on all of the races at TT22. Let that sink in for a moment - all of the solo motorcycle and the sidecar races.

Jack accomplished this amazing feat, failing to finish only one race due to mechanical failure. He has  confirmed he is going to be back at this year's TT and is doing it all again, 10 races this time, which will put him firmly in the history books. This attempt at a record that probably will never be beaten will be the last time Jack goes for it, as he is considering retiring from solo riding next year in order to concentrate on sidecars. We will catch up with Jack at this years TT and see if that is still the case.

If you can't make the TT, Jack Russell Racing will be competing in the sidecar events at this season's British Super Bike rounds, so pop into the pits and have a chat, especially if you can help out with some sponsorship. Or you can visit Ru55ell Road Racing over on FaceBook.

So what can you expect to see at the show? Race machines, a lot of race machines. The first big stand were the Touring Cars of the TCR race series, which are saloons with turbocharged engines with a capacity’s of 1.75 - 2 litres.

TCR is run all over the world and has had a championship running in the UK since 2018. It would have been nice to be able to compare the British Touring Cars to the TCRs, but BTCC didn’t have a stand at this year's show.

There are more than just variants of tin tops at the show, including drag cars, oval racers and even tractors. Not your average field ploughing muck spreading tractors though. Some have got 10000 horses moving these juggernauts of the automotive world. Pulling a sledge over a 100m course, these fire belching monsters are on my list to go and see live if the opportunity arises.

If massive agricultural machinery is not your cup of tea, at the other end of the spectrum was a display of the pinnacle of four wheel motorsports - Formula 1. 

The most interesting hall for me was the performance car show, car clubs, amazing cars for sale and custom cars. I did spend some time here especially as Kream Developments, the customisation and wrapping shop, were doing a number of revivals. I’m more of a performance car aficionado but I must admit the cars were stunning, looked great and drew big crowds and I do like a Datsun.

Throughout the day the live action arena was running demo races and interviews. Not being able to pick my seat, I unfortunately found myself at the front which was great to be close to the action but not so good for grabbing a snap as there was some quite thick safety fencing. My shooting buddy for the day was sitting higher up so didn't have that problem.

There were tributes to Ken Block and Maxi Jazz, the lead singer of Faithless. Maxi was well known as a motorsports fan and part time racer who took part in Porsche Carrera Cup and GT4. He may also have done a bit of kart racing but gave that up after being beaten in a race by one of the original PistonClickers! You can get some sleep now Maxi. 

Overall, the Autosport International was OK, not as big as previous years and lacking in the big reveals and interviews that we had come to expect. As a photographer and motorsports enthusiast there was still enough to see and keep me entertained, but I will study the website next year in detail and decide if its worth the £40.

Photographic Post Script

Kit used for this assignment was a Nikon D7200 with a Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 DX AF-S G for the static shots. A AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8E FL ED VR with a 1.4 teleconverter was used in the area with the ISO ramped up to 25600 which did produce a lot of grain, but was still usable. 

Thanks to RPW Photography for helping out with this report which you can share with your friends on Social Media using these links.