Would double points for the Bathurst 1000 be a good idea?
STORY: AARON NOONAN
IMAGE: AN1 IMAGES (DIRK KLYNSMITH PHOTOGRAPHY)
SITTING back watching Will Power swig the milk and celebrate his victory in the 102nd running of the Indianapolis 500 was indeed something to behold as an Australian motorsport follower.
One thing that was – quite rightly – largely overlooked given the enormity of the event, Power’s achievement and the sheer magnitude of the Indy 500, was the fact his win vaulted him into the IndyCar Series lead.
But just how did it launch him into the lead?
Because the Indy 500, the biggest race of the season, is a double points round of the series.
And that got us thinking about wheeling out something that used to happen here in Supercars – what if we made the Bathurst 1000 a double points event again in future?
From the outset, I believe that the stability of the ‘300 points per weekend’ available on the line over the last decade has been a great thing for the championship, which had been guilty in previous seasons of chopping and changing the pointscore on virtually an annual basis.
But there’s no doubt that winning the Bathurst 1000 and claiming the 300 points that come with it, is far, far harder and more significant an achievement than a single driver win at Sydney Motorsport Park over 300-kilometres, which is the situation we find ourselves in this season.
I like the fact there could be more riding on the biggest race of the year. It’s the race that grabs the majority of headlines that the Supercars Championship generates in a season; it means more to sponsors, fans and the industry than anything else.
Look at it this way – this year there are 16 events on the calendar and 4800 points available over the course of the season.
If we doubled Bathurst to 600 points, that would mean 5100 points on the line for the year with the October race at Mount Panorama making up 11.76% of the available points in a season.
I’d reckon that’s not too big a chunk to get upset about – Bathurst is the most important race of the year, it already carries the prestige, media coverage and focus of the industry – I’d like to see the winners awarded more points to reflect this.
