OPINION: Why watch F1 on TV when live racing is cheaper and more thrilling?

Abcoude, a town about 10 miles south of Amsterdam, has been hosting an autocross since the 1970s, with a course laid out on a field, freshly dug ditches serving as safety barriers, and a mixture of bangers vying to qualify through to the finale at the end of the event. 

I say a mixture of ‘bangers’; while many of the cars amounted to not much more than a scrapper sans windows and beefed up with a roll cage, others were altogether more serious machines – buggies with highly tuned four-cylinders and impressive speed. 

Anyone who’s been to the Nürburgring 24 Hours, or indeed watched Red Bull over the last couple of seasons would understand the kind of performance differential I’m talking about. Buggies in the qualifying stages were getting their teeth into the first corner while the bangers were still pogoing over the start-finish line, their stock suspension struggling to deal with ruts that got larger the further into the day we got. 

Nevertheless, it was hard not to get caught up in the event, standing feet away as the passing cars sprayed me, my wife and child and the dog in a light coating of dust. Green tracks can be unpredictable at the best of times, but when the track is literally green (or at least starts that way) judging grip levels becomes significantly more challenging. Terminal understeer proved a major issue for all concerned. Even a leading buggy could find itself relegated to mid-pack by spearing off onto the ‘run-off’ area.

That would be a best-case scenario. The other option was finding yourself roof-down in a ditch awaiting rescue from one of the fleet of tractors at the event. The driving levels might not have been ‘entirely’ up to F1 standards, but the passion to win was there for all to see as the red mist descended on more than one competitor. 

The paddock, meanwhile, was as modest as the racing, with a distinct lack of carbon fibre and hospitality tents serving beer, not caviar. But the noise and smells of people tinkering with their machines would be enough to excite anyone with an ounce of fuel in their veins.

A younger me would have done as many of the locals did, use a cooler as a seat and spend the day blissfully drinking its contents. As it was, we spent a couple of hours taking in our surroundings before the threat of missing baby’s nap time forced a hasty retreat. 

Still, it was enough to remind me of the joy of live motorsport, particularly motorsport that allows you to sink headlong into the event as I’m sure anyone who’s attended an event here at Goodwood would appreciate.  

At around €15 (c.£12) per head entry (the baby and dog went free), the Abcoude Autocross cost less than half the price of my Now TV F1 monthly subscription. And while I’ll hold my hands up to falling asleep mid-F1 race coverage more than once, I’ll defy anyone to do the same eating a face full of dust at the Abcoude Autocross. 

Images courtesy of Thomas vd Wijngaard.