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Grapevine: Solberg's event to grow

Petter Solberg says he will return with a bigger and better Extreme Motorshow in Oslo next year, following what the Norwegian described as the massive success of Saturday's inaugural event

Solberg and his brother Henning hosted the event, which pitched some of the sport's biggest names against each other in a stadium in Oslo. The show was the first motorsport event to sell-out to 15,000 spectators at the venue.

Solberg said: "It was unbelievable. The tickets all sold out the night before the event started - we then had another 2000 people waiting outside on the day. It was absolutely incredible."

Marcus Gronholm and Tommi Makinen represented the rally world while Martin Schanche and recent winner of the Race of Champions Mattias Ekstrom represented the circuit racers. There was no outright winner of the event - but that's something Solberg wants to change for next season.

"We will have a winner next year," he said. "There were class winners this time, but not an overall. This time, we wanted to focus on getting the show right. And we certainly did that. Everything was fantastic: the drivers, the cars, the show and the television."

Solberg has also hinted that the show could travel to various locations, with Finland and Ireland on a possible early list for a tour of the Extreme Motorshow.

"This is the way forward for motorsport," said Solberg. "We have put a hell of a lot of work into this, but the result was absolutely fantastic. Nobody will forget what they saw, including a Ferrari Formula 1 car doing donuts."

Solberg admitted there were some teething problems with the show, adding: "We have some small things to work on for next year, things like making sure the lighting is right in the stadium and things like that, but nothing major. This was an amazing start."

Read Solberg's exclusive AUTOSPORT column later this week.

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