RET127 Temp Digital

I t is precisely 11 seconds after 11 minutes after the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month. It is the official start of carnival in Cologne. To the outside observer it appears an annual opportunity for the city to run amok has been given the starting gun. To the motorsport professional outsider, the unfolding mayhem is a sure signal that the trade show season is about to start. I recall a couple of years ago arriving a day early for the Professional Motorsport World Expo (PMWE) by train at the Cologne Hauptbahnhof. That was early evening on the 11th, and as the doors were sliding apart an impatient mass of humanity that had been partying for around eight hours poured in from the platform swamping my carriage, making it nigh-on impossible for me to alight! The Hauptbahnhof is on the edge of the old town, which regular PMWE attendees will know for the likes of Peters Brauhaus with its famous pork knuckles – accompanied by thimbles of its own beer, which contrast starkly with the massive steins of any self-respecting brauhaus in Munich. Then there is the late-night Irish bar packed with English-speaking racing industry personnel, and Papa Joe’s with its trad jazz and its ‘Doctor’s’ medicine handed over the counter – which is, let’s just say, an advance cure for any concentration the next day. Meanwhile, across the wide murky brown span of the slow-flowing Rhine stands the functional modern Messe exhibition complex, home to the PMWE since its inception in 2006. I recall the very first day. It was a thimble to the PRI stein but by the end of that opening gambit the consensus from the founding exhibitors was that the event was bringing to their stands the right sort of visitor. PMWE has grown accordingly but never triffid-like to rival the enormity of PRI. It has remained focused on high-end racing, whereas right from its much earlier start the American event has embraced the massive phenomenon that is national grassroots racing. Over the years, PRI has developed its high-end segment, and PMWE has echoed that aspect of it from a European perspective, making both events compulsory for RET . Each winter our editors walk the aisles of both events to seek out new products and services relevant to our readership of professionals involved in the design and development of traditional and electric powertrains for all forms of racing and rallying. Alas, this year there are no aisles to walk, not in Cologne or Indianapolis. We are regularly told by readers how useful our show findings are; that being the case we have reached out to those companies we could have expected to come across at each event to discover what they would have told us about. This then is what would have been our PMWE report, had we had the opportunity to walk the event for the 15th time. 56 Ian Bamsey reports on what would have been announced this year at the expo if it had been able to go ahead The Eleventh Hour View from the Cologne Messe, the Rhine and on the far bank the old town with its twin-spire cathedral (adjacent to which is the Hauptbahnhof)