gamma racing day - why doesn't the uk do this!

[bella]

so, i spent the weekend at the gamma racing day at assen. pretty much the only things not on the timetable are horse racing, wife carrying and trucks, it's that wide-ranging. there's a historic race, boss gp, "supercars" (think british gt), formula renault 2.0, bikes, sidecars...

there were upwards of 50,000 people there - their quoted attendance is around the 80,000 mark. and people loved it, the stands were full all day, the paddock was packed, the army brought a chinook, there was karting, bikes racing on the kart track, loads of stuff going on. if you fancy a random away day next season, make this your choice. it's genuinely great.

the event was sponsored by a large retailer, they handed out free event caps that everyone was wearing, €5 vouchers for the store at the end of the day, they had promo girls everywhere, the brand was literally everywhere.

which raises the question - why don't we do more of these things in the uk? do we even do any at all? i'm sure the wide variation of track action on offer helped get people through the door, in addition to the free tickets (but paid-for paddock access) and f1 demo. all we have is the world series by renault (which has returned in a cheap but not free format) and the usual money-grabbing events like the btcc and bsb. event costs can't be *that* much higher here surely..