15 January 2010 – I Watch Too Much Racing

Autosport International

Tomorrow, Saturday 15th January, I will be attending Autosport International, ‘The Racing Car Show’ for the 3rd time.

I attended previously in 2001 and 2004 and as you can see from the albums I’ve linked, the lighting at the NEC is diabolical. I shall try my best and I won’t be relying on a disposable camera this time.

The attractions such as they are, include the ‘live arena’, the interviews on the Autosport stage, the F1 Racing grid and a lot of trade stands featuring displays of racing cars. The live arena can be fun, it isn’t fantastic but it is an entertaining way to spend an hour. The F1 Racing grid is a collection of recent cars roped off, with the ropes getting in the way of good photos. Hopefully I’ll be able to time it right to hear someone interesting on the main stage, it can be a bit hit and miss.

You may wonder why I’m going if I know what to expect. Well, I want to see what’s changed in the six years since my last visit. My hunch is ‘not much’, though I’d like to see for myself. I’m also going with a group, as I’m meeting the guys and girls of VivaF1 (formerly Pitlane Fanatic), most of them for the first time. It’ll be interesting to see how that changes the experience, if at all.

To perfectly honest though, I had agreed to go to the Bloggers and Friends karting event before I decided whether or not to go to Autosport, because I wanted to support it. Eventually I decided why not, I’m in the area anyway. I’m looking forward to the karting as much as the Autosport show!

It is going to be a long day, I will do my best to take photos and if there is a mobile signal I’ll be tweeting too, and shall report back on Sunday..

EDIT – In the meantime you should check out the newly-relaunched The Feeder Series for Jon’s excellent recordings of discussions with various people at the show on the trade days. Part 1 and Part 2.

Welcome to the new home of Too Much Racing!

Thank you everybody who’s helped me over on the old site, whether by reading, commenting, plugging or whatever else you’ve done. The growth in readership over the 18 months since I started has been beyond anything I could have hoped for and it encourages me to continue, just as I hope you’ll continue reading.

Thanks especially to those who assisted with my minor crisis in choosing a future name for the blog. I’ve decided to make use of a function here on WordPress that is not offered by Blogger, and that’s having a different title to the URL. For the time being I’m going to call this blog ‘I Watch Too Much Racing‘. I’ll probably take a photo of my TV and have that as a logo or something.

So this is it, the new home. I think it looks a lot more slick and professional. I suppose I now have to make sure the writing matches up to it! I like the extra space it provides, I’m not restricted by the narrowness of the template I was using in Blogger and I didn’t like the alternatives there, plus I can add a whole lot more links and I’m all about sharing what other people are doing (particular between circles that don’t usually mix), as anyone following on Twitter will probably know.

WordPress does have limitations – I can’t embed the F1 Minute player or the Google Calendar, so I’ve had to improvise and provide links to each series’ calendar in the sidebar. Just click the link and that championship will appear, then down at the bottom right is an ‘add’ button, click that to add to your Google Calendar.
On the whole I think these shortcomings are a small price to pay for the many gains in other areas.

I think that’s it for this post, please bear with me while I learn the various admin features here, there are a lot more of them than on Blogger – and let’s not knock Blogger. It is a great place to get started in blogging without getting surrounded by confusing options and if you are thinking about starting a blog but aren’t sure if you’d like it, I recommend using it to find your feet or if you just want a space to write in.