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Motorshow 4x4

‘The World’s largest 4x4 course at a Motorshow’

The brief came directly from the SMMT, the organisers of the British International Motorshow. ‘Build a 4x4 course in a woodland at the back of the NEC for all manufacturers to participate in and that also creates a visitor attraction for the public.’

Now came the hard bit; to make it worthwhile and cost effective thousands of people needed to be able to participate, the course needed to be challenging for all, from soft roaders to off roaders and it also needed to provide that wow factor for the show’s visitors.

In January 2004 the main ground works commenced with the heavy plant moving the earth around to form traverses, banks, ascents and descents as well as cutting a route into the pond in the deer grazing area.

Did we mention the deer, the badger sets, the wetlands, the protected trees and all of the environmental issues? By moving the earth early this would give nature the chance to repair and with the show opening at the end of May we would catch the spring growing season.

February saw an on site meeting of the 7 ‘signed up’ manufacturers at which they had their first opportunity to see the intended course and request any specific obstacles that fitted in with their vehicles’ capabilities and brand aims.

April and May were flat out finishing off the construction, laying turf, seeding and dressing areas with chip bark and the erection of the ‘Edge’.

November 2003 saw the laying down of tracks and potential routes through the 72-acre working woodland managed by the NEC Estates management. An on-site meeting for all potential exhibiting manufacturers saw much discussion and not an inconsiderable amount of free advice. How to keep competing car manufacturers happy over the next 6 months proved to be one of the many challenges. What would the weather be like, how would the natural course stand up to the challenge of 12,00 vehicles passing over it over 12 days? Could we possibly make the ‘Experience’ exciting and yet comply with all of those numerous, yet important, health and safety rules.

The time had also now come to decide what to do with the wet areas, those places that would become impassable if it rained heavily. With the very wet April a decision was made to dig out the boggy bits and basically bury tree trunks, that were stacked in abundance, cover with hardcore and then chip bark so as to disguise the new roads! This turned out to be a wise decision and on the Monday night of the second week of the show this technique was repeated on two other areas that had become impassable due to very heavy rain! Over 100 trunks were buried in this manner!

Although the course was intended to be natural an enclosed ‘blackout’ bridge saw the show’s visitors begin the course in Hall 3A. This transported all participants, in the car of their choice, from the Hall to the woodland some 150 metres away over the service road at the rear of the NEC and past the industrial units. From Motorshow Hall to Woodland, quite a start to the course. This structure, built by Media Structures Ltd, took some 6 days to build and 3 to dismantle and was made primarily of scaffolding. As with the other temporary structures on the course this was checked and signed off by an engineer before the show opened daily.

In the pond 60 metres of Trackway was submerged which allowed for the 12,000 vehicle passes to be achieved without mishap although the 18” starting depth did increase to 23” as the Trackway was pushed into the sand!

Immediately following the pond was ‘The Edge’, an 8 metre high, 39-degree ascent/descent metal bridge structure that certainly heard its fair share of screams!

During the course of the show the newly constructed ‘Bombholes’ became twice as long and considerably deeper than at the start.

The trunks on the traverse were dislodged on numerous occasions, particularly in week two when the drivers became ever more daring and confident.

With the forecast of bad weather at the beginning of week 2 the maintenance and design teams worked ‘overtime’ over the weekend to construct some new alternative routes that were utilised on Tuesday through Thursday due to the arrival in abundance of the promised rain.

However, all of the routes remained open to all vehicles for the duration of the show with the exception of that 2nd Tuesday morning when one short stretch was repaired.

At the end of the show the course was returned to the NEC Estates Management, with the tracks having been graded, all metal work removed, traverses dismantled, fences repaired and Trackway removed.

Whilst it could not be said that you would not be able to see that we had been there, it certainly did not look like 12,000 vehicles had driven through over that 12-day period. Given

All manufacturers agreed that the event had been a huge success, some even said that their vehicles had a been put through a very good, real world testing experience and most certainly you only had to spend some time in the Hall watching the faces of the public as they disappeared up into the bridge at the start or alighted from the vehicles at the end to see just how much they enjoyed it.

As for the team at D&S Events, we were proud to have been involved, whether we would do it again, of course we would!

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