I ignored alt the good advice here , and my own misgivings ,and went with my wife yesterday.
Without wanting to be an old grump it was pretty poor and m wife confirmed worse than the last time she went 3 years ago.
The "Autosport through the decades" display was actually good. Nice , important cars from the Jag C type and 250F through the Lotus 79 and McLaren MP4 to a Porsche 919 hybrid, all in nice condition and well presented.
The rest was, in truth , a mess. A set of replicars for sale mixed up with engineering stuff. The odds and ends booths had spread across the floor from the usual side locations and the nice Formula E display was stranded amongst some quite tacky tuning stuff. The BRSCC and 750 Club stands were good but too crowded with cars to allow any real viewing or space for discussion.
Almost no complete modern racing cars on display by the manufacturer, In prior years Ligier showed their LMP cars and were happy to chat, in very good English, to everybody.
The Performance and Tuning section was mostly horrible - blinged up road cars and huge SUV's backed by boombox music with the BMW and Marcos club struggling at the far end!. I think that is where the engineering bit is through Friday and it looked like the space was sold of to all comers late on Friday!
On a more positive note the Drag racing and Stock car racing displays had, as usual, very friendly and helpful staff. I think they actually enjoy being able to contact people from other racing disciplines.
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It is not cheap, obviously and I always find the parking fees outrageous but the NEC has also stopped taking cash anywhere inside the Halls for food and drink plus there are no parking ticket booths at the car parks, you have to find one inside which meant an extra walk. A nuisance not a hardship except that my entry ticket was printed at 11.18 had our live action arena seats booked for 11.30!!
Edited by mariner, 12 January 2020 - 10:11.