Too Much of a Good Thing

By Simon

When I raced, double headers were a rare event. It usually coincided with a big holiday weekend where racing took place all weekend long—with a race taking place on consecutive days. The concept of double headers at every event was rare. I think the DTM (aka German touring cars) was the only series to do this. In recent years, most series in the UK and Europe are double headers and some are triple header events (in the case of the British Touring Car Championship) with three sprint races occurring in the same day. As much as this sounds like a good thing, I’m not a fan. I don’t think it’s good entertainment.

I understand the economic sense of double and triple header races. In the case of the BTCC, it’s a 30-race season that plays out at ten tracks over ten weekends. This setup cuts down the travel and helps keep budgets low. But I still don’t like them. I used to run on very tight budget and operated with very few spare parts and bought them as and when I needed them. But if I was involved in a double or triple header, I would need a full complement of spares to cover myself, which I would have never been able to afford. So a major shunt could not only take me out of the race, but could take me out of two or three races instead of having the luxury of time to fix the car for the next event.

I suppose the big thing here is that I don’t like this trend for double headers as the race card isn't as fun anymore. I liked race days when there used to be a 10-race program with ten different kinds of racing incorporating sedans, single seaters, historics, etc. Now, you have a race program with the same cars coming back up over and over again like Jason Voorhees and I think it takes the shine off the race going because the variety disappears. You really can have too much of a good thing, don’t you think?