Sidecarcross is a sport where teams of two men race motorcycles outfitted with sidecars on an motocross-track. The driver and passenger work together in order to maneuver the motorcycle around the track’s curves and jumps.
It doesn’t matter if the sidecar is attached on the right or on the left side of the actual motorcycle. In general sidecarcrews from countries where the drive at the right-side of the road also riding a right-hander and crews from England for example, where they drive on the left-side of the road, are riding a left-hander.
Sidecarcross is very similar to regular motocross but with a different type of motorcycle chassis, and with a team of two people riding together instead of one. Sidecarcross is carried out in the same way as regular motocross on the same tracks. Handling offcourse is different due to the sidecar.
The driver handles the bike a bit similar to the way he does in regular motocross races but the bike doesn’t lean on turns. And that’s where the passenger comes into play and has to deliver on the crucial task of moving his weight around in the sidecar to ensure that the bike goes faster and does not flip over on turns and jumps.
In fact it’s the passenger who ends up doing more physical activity in this sport than the driver. Hence it’s important that the passenger is in the best physical condition possible before he gets into the sidecar. One of the most important aspects of sidecar racing is teamwork; the best sidecar teams in the world developed a high level of teamwork needed to be
successful in the sport.
The official FIM World championship is held over several GP rounds at top motocross venues
throughout Europe. A sidecarcross GP takes two days. On Saturday the qualifying and on suday the actual GP-races for the championship points. At some of the GP’s the qualifying is actually a ‘real’ qualifying because only thirthy sidecarcrews can enter the GP on Sunday and most of the GP’s more then thirty teams are signed in. On Saturday they split all the sidecarcrews in two groups, the ‘A’ and the ‘B’ group. Both goups have to race one heat to be sure that they belong to the best thirty teams who can enter on sunday.
If a team doesn’t make this, the GP weekend ends on Saturday.
On Sunday there are two GP-heats, duration 30 minutes + two rounds, where sidecarcrews can earn points for the FIM World Championship Sidecarcross.
Other races, like national championships, are held on one single day instead of two.
There is a small scene of sidecarcross in North America and Australia but the sport is much more populair in the Northen part of Europe. In the sixtees it grew bigger and bigger with teams from England, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium wich competed in the fist national, and later on, international races.
Eventually in 1971 the first official international competition was held with the first ‘FIM-cup’. Later on this competition became the European Championship and from 1980 it became an offcial FIM World Championship.
The most successfull sidecar-motocross driver in history is the Dutchman Daniël Willemsen, who has became World Champion ten times.
Other very succesfull crews from the past where Sergis/Rasmanis from Latvia (6 times World
Champion) and two crews from Switserland both becoming World Champion 4 times; Bächthold/Füss and Fuhrer/Kaiser. Also Dutch driver Etienne Bax was very succesfull. He became Worldchampion five times.
