Sidecarcross world championship

:For the main article, see "Sidecarcross"The Sidecar Motocross World Championship is an annual event, organised by the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM), held since 1980. The current champions for the 2008 season are "Daniël Willemsen" and "Reto Grütter".

Overview

The World Championship in sidecar motocross is held annually form the European spring to autumn. The racing calendar includes races in various European countries. The 2008 season will start with its first race on 20 April in Oss, Netherlands, consist of twelve Grand Prix and finish on 14 September 2008 in Rudersberg, Germany. This season's calendar is considerably larger then the 2007 one which consisted of only eight races.

History

The history of international competition started with the FIM Cup in 1971, a form of an unofficial European championship, organised by the FIM. The first ever race was held on 25 April 1971 at Pernes-les-Fontaines, France.

From 1975, the competition was officially called European championship. From the 1980 season onwards, it carried the title World championship, even though, in practice, virtually all drivers and passengers are European and all races are held in Europe. In its history, there has never been a race outside Europe and majority of the races are in central Europe. The appearance of strong Latvian drivers however has taken races to the Baltic region in the last few years. As of 2007, 24 European countries have hosted GPs, Germany holding number one spot there. Races have however also been staged at countries with no strong sidecarcross connections, like Greece, Norway and Northern Ireland [ [http://www.thejohndaveypages.org/JD_GP/MIXXXVNVN.htm COUNTRIES WITH MOST ALLOCATIONS OF GP ] ] .

The competitors in the world championship are mostly amateurs. Apart from racing in the world championship they also compete in their countries' domestic championships. The current world champion Willemsen also won the Dutch national championship this year. National championships are actually "open" events; non-nationals are permitted to compete, too. Sergis / "Rasmanis" for example also won the German championship in 1998 [http://www.sidecarcross.de/home/home.htm Statistik/Hall Of Fame] .

The highest number of championships has been won by Daniël Willemsen with six, who is also the current champion. The most successful team however is Kristers Sergis / "Artis Rasmanis" with five titles together. The two missed out on a sixth title, when in 1999, they lost by only one point to Daniël Willemsen.

History of the world championship

The first edition of the world championship in 1980 saw the only German victory to date with the combination Reinhard Böhler / "Siegfried Müller" taking out the title. The year after, the championship went to the Netherlands with Ton van Heugten / "Frits Kiggen" / "Sies Hurkmans". The next eight seasons, the Swiss riders triumphed. Emil Bollhalder / "Karl Büsser" won the championship in 1982 and 1983, both times with a narrow margin, 11 points in the first year and 28 in the second. Unlucky runner-up in the three seasons from 1981 to 1983 were the Germans Josef Brockhausen / "Hubert Rebele", missing out quite narrowly and retiring in 1983 after the third attempt, as did Bollhalder, but as the world champion.

From 1984 to 1987, four titles went to Hansi Bächtold / "Fritz Fuß". Again, there was no luck for the runner-up with the Dutch combination August Muller / "Henk van Heek" coming second in 1985, 86 and 87. In 1986, only 7 points separated winner from second place. Bächtold retired as the new record world champion in 1987.

Christoph Hüsser / "Andreas Hüsser" won the titles in 1988 and 1989 and continued to race after that until 1996, never coming close to another world championship again. Benny Janssen / "Frans Geurts Van Kessel" became the last to win one championship only when the finished on top in 1990, beating the German team Michael Garhammer / "Ralf Haas" by only 13 points and ending eight years of Swiss domination.

Eimbert Timmermans / "Eric Verhagen" from the Netherlands beat the Belgian duo Eddy Ramon / "Gino Strubbe" for the next two titles in 1991 and 92. After this, the world championship returned to Switzerland with Andreas Führer / "Adi Käser" equaling the record of four titles in a row from 1993 to 1996 and then retiring from the competition.

With Kristers Sergis / "Artis Rasmanis" the 1997 championship went to Latvia for the first time. The tightest race for the championship so far saw them beat the German/Dutch team of Alois Wenninger / "Henry van de Wiel" by four points. The year after, they won again, this time with a twenty point gap to Daniël Willemsen / "Marcel Willemsen".

In 1999, it was the thightest race ever when only one point at the end of the season separated the Willemsen brothers from the Latvian title holders. The final outcome of the season was not clear until the Willemsen brothers were cleared of having received outside assistance in the second-last race which clinched them the world title, since Artis Rasmanis had lodged a formal complaint [ [http://www.fim.ch/fr/magazine/mag30/decision_cour.pdf DECISION OF THE INTERNATIONAL DISCIPLINARY COURT OF 4 OCTOBER 1999] ] . In 2000, Kristers Sergis / "Artis Rasmanis" came back, beating Daniël Willemsen / "Sven Verbrugge" by 20 points, the last tight race to date. The Latvians became the new record holder after title number four and five in 2001 and 2002, Willemsen coming second all three seasons.

From 2003 to 2008, it was then the time for Daniël Willemsen to make up for lost titles and he won six in a row, becoming the most successful driver so far.

Format

Every Grand Prix weekend is split into two races, both held on the same day. This means, the 2007 season with its eight Grand Prix had sixteen races. Each race lasts for 30 minutes plus two rounds. The two races on a weekend actually get combined to determined an overall winner. While this overall winners receives no extra WC points, they usually are awarded a special trophy.

The 2007 season had 60 teams registered but not all of team raced in every event. All up, 48 of those gained competition points. The team "Willemsen / Grutter" dominated 2007, winning 15 out of sixteen straight, only failing in race 13 of the season when they scored no points at all.

Teams consist of a driver and a passenger, however, the drivers can and do exchange passengers during the season, often due to injury. An exchange of passenger does not affect the points a team has won up till then.

The point system for the 2008 season was as follows [ [http://www.seitenwagen-motocross.de/ Ergebnisse: World Sidecarcross Championships 2007] ] :

Champions

* FIM Cup winners 1971 to 1974
* "Passengers" in italics.

Recent and current seasons

The 2006 season

:For main article see "2006 Sidecarcross world championship"The top twelve teams of the 2006 season were:
* The "Sidecarcross des Nations" in "Genk" on 28 September 2008 is a non-championship event but part of the calendar.
* Only "Kegums" and "Rudersberg" have been part of the 2007 race season, all other ten courses are new compare to last season.

Top-ten finishers in the world championship since 1995

Apart from the finishes listed, most of those drivers/teams have also had finishes outside the top-ten in those years. The teams finishing in the top-ten over the last 13 seasons:
* In 2005, "Ludo Somers" raced as passenger with Jan Hendrickx in some races.
* In 2005, "Roger van de Lagemaat" raced as passenger with Joris Hendrickx in some races.
* In 2002, "Dagwin Sabbe" raced as passenger with Daniël Willemsen in some races.
* In 2001, "Premysl Novotny" raced as passenger with Daniël Willemsen in some races.
* In 1999, "Alco van de Ketterij" raced as passenger with Alois Wenninger in some races.
* In 1997, "Sven Verbrugge" raced as passenger with Daniël Willemsen in some races.

ee also

* List of national sidecarcross champions

External links

* [http://www.fim.ch/en/default.asp The official "FIM" website]
* [http://www.sidecarcross.de/home/home.htm Sidcarcross.de with results and dates for the 2008 season (in German)]
* [http://www.teamwillemsen.com/ Website of the current world champions "Team Willemsen"]

ources

* [http://www.sidecarcross.com/ The World Championship on Sidecarcross.com]
* [http://www.seitenwagen-motocross.de/ "Seitenwagen-Motocross" website with pictures and results (in German)]
* [http://www.thejohndaveypages.org/JD_GP/JD_GP___Index.htm The John Davey Grand Prix Pages - Results of all GP's up until 2005]

References