National Motorsport Week 2012 : 30th June - 8th July

Following the great success of this year’s National Motorsport Week, the Motor Sports Association (MSA) and Motorsport Industry Association (MIA) have confirmed that next year’s National Motorsport Week will run from Saturday 30 June to Sunday 8 July 2012.

This year’s initiative generated a massive increase in activities and events ranging from open days at M-Sport in Cumbria and fund raising cycle rides around Silverstone to a plethora of novice taster days organised by motor clubs throughout the country.

National Motorsport Week 2011 also achieved widespread exposure across TV, radio, print and online media. David Coulthard’s first experiences of grass roots motor sport aired to more than three million viewers as part of the BBC’s coverage of the European GP at the start of the week. Other national media carried dedicated National Motorsport Week stories including BBC Radio 5 Live, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror and The Sun, as well as specialist publications Autosport and Autocar.

Almost 10,000 enthusiasts entered a series of online competitions to win factory tours at the eight UK-based Formula One teams. These competitions were hosted on the MSA’s www.GoMotorsport.net website which enjoyed a ten fold increase in visitor numbers during National Motorsport Week.

It is hoped that National Motorsport Week 2012 will again coincide with the Goodwood Festival of Speed and take place during the immediate build up to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, provisionally scheduled for Sunday 15 July.

“This year’s National Motorsport Week has exceeded everyone’s expectations,” says Colin Hilton, MSA Chief Executive. “We have celebrated the UK’s world-leading motor sport industry, we have drawn attention to less well-publicised parts of the sport and we have helped to attract new recruits to our clubs and events. We now need to build on this and we believe that the early announcement of next year’s dates will give everyone a better chance of getting involved.”

“I always believed that there was great potential in National Motorsport Week and I am delighted that, with the MSA’s support, we are now starting to build the momentum that both the sport and the industry deserve,” says Chris Aylett, MIA Chief Executive. “Motor sport is a great British success story; not only does it deliver £6 billion of sales each year and underpin 40,000 jobs, but the high-performance engineering sector can also inspire the next generation of world-class engineers and that has to be good news for the future of British industry.”