Looking back at the GP Sidecars Oss: 2008
We start this series of looking back at the previous sidecar cross GPs in Oss in 2008. We are then in the final days of the years-long titanic battle between the Latvian Kristis Sergis and Daniël Willemsen.
This battle has now been going on for ten years. Daniël and Marcel Willemsen quickly knocked the Latvian combination of Sergis/Rasmanis off the World Cup throne in 1999. Many expected that Daniël and Marcel Willemsen would quickly dominate the global sidecar cross after that first World Cup title. But a very hard blow in Italy during the following winter, when the throttle stalls and the sidecar flies over a table mountain and lands brutally, throwing a spanner in the works. What's hot! At first it was even feared that brother Marcel would never be able to walk again... Later, however, Marcel came back hard after his incomplete spinal cord injury and even knew years later almost as a rider on a slightly modified sidecar (the rear brake was operated on the handlebars with the thumb ) to win the ONK title!
However, Marcel's days as a baking player are definitely over after that bizarre blow in Italy.
So Daniël has to look for another baking artist. It turns out to be a difficult, years-long search. Daniël misses the 'click' that he had with his brother and clearly had difficulty with that in the first years without Marcel Willemsen. Sergis takes over again and strings together three world titles until Daniël finally finds a good match with the previously relatively unknown Latvian Kaspars Stupelis. In 2003 and 2004, Willemsen regained the World Cup title, after which a remarkable change took place. Stupelis will drive alongside Sergis and Verbrugge from 2005. Sergis, a driver for two years until then, will go to Willemsen. Verbrugge and Willemsen tried it together before, which failed, but in 2005 and 2006 it turned out well with two World Cup titles. In 2007, Willemsen suddenly took office again with a relatively inexperienced baking player; Reto Grutter from Switzerland. It turned out to be a golden opportunity because Daniël Willemsen also won the title in 2007. In 2008, Daniël Willemsen had the same plan again with Grutter in jail. Sergis finally wanted to become world champion again after playing second fiddle for all those years. In 2008, with Stupelis in jail again, it finally had to happen again for Latvia.
The first World Cup round of 2008 took place in Oss….
Even before a sidecar is even started in Oss, there is the news that Reto Grutter, Daniël Willemsen's baking player, cannot participate in the first World Championship round of 2008 due to an injury! Willemsen quickly looks for a substitute driver and he finds one in the form of Bruno Kaelin, who is separated from the Austrian rider Martin.
This experienced baking artist certainly knows his stuff, but the absolute top is new to him. He dryly answers on Saturday morning to a number of fans from Switzerland that driving with Daniël is "completely the same as he is used to... only much harder and faster."
The men have plenty of discussions on Saturday before two qualifying races will be held in Oss for the first time in sidecar cross history, instead of the usual qualifying training sessions at the time.
Willemsen competes in group A and things get dramatic in his very first qualifying race. Willemsen/Kaelin have a bad start and have to play a catch-up race that is suddenly stopped when the Swede Folkensson rolls over in front of them. Willemsen wants to go around the outside but this ends in tears...
This small feat does not lead to direct qualification, but Willemsen does have the dubious honor of being the first ever to be the fastest in the last-change qualifying training at the end of the day.
His closest opponent Sergis wins the heat in the same group and goes into Sunday comfortably knowing that he can be the first to drive up to the fence and opponent Willemsen only when he is 24.e....
What could possibly go wrong, Sergis must have thought when he started the warm-up training that Sunday... What many people don't know, a lot 'almost' went wrong for the Latvian team. In one of the last timed laps that morning, Sergis/Stupelis landed incorrectly after a full speed jump at the back of the circuit. Sergis' footrest hit a straw bale and the stuff fell over hard, with Sergis seeing the bouncing motorcycle land on top of him. It would have made little difference for Sergis/Stupelis that the season would have ended there before it had even really started!
In the first World Cup round, Sergis/Stupelis simply took control and came first. Willemsen finished fifth in this heat with difficulty. In the second heat, Sergis dropped out from a top position, which meant grist for the World Cup mill for Willemsen, who finished third in this heat.
However, the 'show' in this second round was unexpectedly stolen by Thijs Derks and Tom van Duijnhoven. Brutal, people were 13 as expected in the first heate they were in the lead until Hendrickx/Smeuninckx overtook them in the final phase. The Belgian combination also won the GP but the smiling Derks was a nice 2nde in a heat for the World Championship Sidecar Cross and left Willemsen, who finished third, well behind him!
Willemsen kept the damage limited in the overall standings with his 'last-minute' bakist and still finished second in the daily total in Oss, knowing that his 'eternal' rival from Latvia had dropped out in the 2e round... This turned out to be a format for 2008 in which Daniël Willemsen once again became World Champion with his regular racing driver Grutter at his side for the rest of the GPs.
It arrived early! Koen Hermans in 2008
at the test/children's track in Oss!
Text: Emil Bilars
Photos: www.orangehat.nl
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