Preview Denicol Belgian Sidecars Grand Prix Lommel!
The Motocross World Championship for the solo classes has already started and what beautiful images we saw last weekend from the Dutch Grand Prix in Valkenswaard! This weekend we will travel about 20 kilometers to the southwest and cross the Dutch-Belgian border and arrive in Lommel for another Grand Prix in the Benelux. This time, however, the solo bikes will remain in the stable, because the overture for the 2019 Sidecar Cross World Championship is on the program in Lommel!
And what an overture! No fewer than 50 World Cup sidecars have been registered in advance, but there is only room for 30 teams during the actual GP on Sunday where the real World Cup points are distributed. Saturday will therefore immediately provide a spectacle at World Cup level, as 40% of the participants will have to drop out!
In addition to the qualifying races for the World Championship sidecars, the National Championship sidecars will also be in action for two heats on Saturday.
A secondary series of sidecars is planned for Sunday in which the non-qualified World Cup teams may enter and in addition, the ONK Quad Masters will frame the Denicol Sidecar Grand Prix of Belgium on Sunday. The main event on Sunday will of course be the two GP heats in which the first World Cup points will be distributed and from which the victor of the Grand Prix Sidecars of Belgium will emerge!
For only 30 euros for the entire weekend, or for 15 euros for either day, you can watch the World Championship Sidecars, and believe us, it promises to be a very intense battle for the coveted first red leader's plate of the FIM WC Sidecarcross 2019.
In the coming article we will take you through what you can expect from this first Grand Prix and the expectations for the season. Mind you, expectations! Because, especially in sidecar cross, one never knows what can happen and for that reason alone every sports fan should be on call this coming weekend in Lommel!
Last season, most experts were quite wrong with their expectations about the World Cup Sidecar Cross. The trendsetters of 2017 would dominate the World Cup in 2018, people thought, and a number of ambitious teams would try to get in the way with a crowbar... At the end of the season, however, it turned out that those ambitious teams were simply hanging on. got rid of the prizes! There was no limit to Vanluchene/Van den Boogaart last season and to their own surprise, but well deserved, they took the World Sidecar Motocross title to Belgium!
The runner-up at the end of the World Cup cycle, the Dutchman Koen Hermans with his French baking player Nicolas Musset, also ended up doing much better than expected with their second World Cup place.
The title candidates announced in advance by most media last year had a mixed season and ultimately finished third (Bax/Stupelis), fourth (Giraud/Badaire) and seventh (Willemsen/Bax) in the overall standings. After a solid season, the Eastern European team of Varik/Daiders settled in sixth place in the final ranking.
In fifth position, after a very strong second half of the season, we finally saw the youngest Grand Prix winner ever, Julian Veldman, who rode very strongly after Glenn Janssens joined in mid-2018 and managed to win two more GPs.
These seven teams will do everything they can to score well in Lommel, because they all have the ambition to end up at least in the top three of the 2019 Sidecar Cross World Championship.
And regarding the battle we saw in the last ONK's sidecar cross, it will be a heated feud in which every meter must be used on the blowing sand in Lommel! Both in Lochem and in Varsseveld we saw very exciting matches in which Bax/Stupelis, Hermans/Musset, Vanluchene/Van den Boogaart and Veldman/Janssens were constantly battling each other. In between there is the new couple of the cannibal Daniël Willemsen and the Frenchman Luc Rostingt.
Frequently heard comments in Varsseveld were addressed to this couple. Willemsen would not be happy with the riding, kept pointing and making comments at Rostingt, even during the heats. As the beautiful saying goes, 'the best helmsmen are on shore', Willemsen doesn't care about that and most sidecar cross fans should know better by now. As was often the case, the old teacher did 'coaching on the job' and ultimately turned down his nose at his competitors, who were certainly hot on his heels. The 'captain' Willemsen sent his battleship crewed with first flying sailor Rostingt across the finish line three times in second place and once as winner during the heats, thus outpacing the other four top teams in the ONK sidecars so far.
The other four direct competitors of Willemsen/Rostingt have all stayed together in terms of couple and were able to prepare thoroughly for the upcoming World Cup season this winter. The ever-spontaneous Etienne Bax will be motivated to the core to strike immediately together with the Latvian Kaspars Stupelis. Last winter they managed to add a mechanic to their team, Monster Energy joined as a sponsor and more meters were made on the sidecar than ever before. To leave nothing to chance, team Bax even trained in Lommel this afternoon! Bax/Stupelis will therefore want to get out of the starting blocks furiously to wipe away the bad taste of the first GP of 2018 when they crashed and Bax's broken collarbone immediately put all the World Cup aspirations on hold. The material, a WSP-Zabel, will remain the same as before.
This also applies to the reigning World Champion from Belgium, Marvin Vanluchene with the experienced Dutch baking player Ben van den Boogaart at his side. They remain loyal to the VMC-Zabel and gave it a good impression during, among other things, a training internship in Spain and were able to compete for podium places in the ONK competitions. Team Vanluchene will do everything they can to make their worst GP result of 2018, especially in front of the home crowd in Lommel at the time, pale and score big in this first World Cup sidecar round. Like Vanluchene, vice-World Champion Koen Hermans also does not have good memories of the GP in Lommel last year when they had a bad weekend with several crashes, which resulted in a mediocre score during the Belgian World Cup round.
Hermans/Musset will definitely want to take revenge with the WSP-Zabel and grab the win in the first GP of 2019.
Julian Veldman and Glenn Janssens already put their new WHT-Mega team through their paces and were twice the fastest team in the sand of Varsseveld in the ONK heats in the final phase of the race. The ambition is to definitively enter the top 3 of the World Cup, so people have been warned about the drive of 'the Frogg' from Kampen, who could score big with his Belgian companion Glenn Janssens this coming weekend. After all, Veldman knows the route to the podium in Lommel as he was the youngest participant ever to surprisingly end up there during the GP sidecars of Belgium in 2017.
In Varsseveld we finally saw the Frenchman Giraud at the start, who, like Veldman, has opted for the Mega 2-stroke engine blocks for this year. Giraud had a somewhat difficult preparation for 2019 and not Johny Badaire but the German Andres Haller will be next to him in the sidecar on the hunt for fame in 2019.
Giraud/Haller did not do badly in Varsseveld, they just missed out on catching up with the Dutch and Belgian toppers, but rode solidly and almost flawlessly through the heavy sand into the top five. Giraud will want to score as many points as possible in Lommel and on a good day he can suddenly win in the sand, as evidenced by his heat victory last year during the GP in the sand of Oss.
The Estonian Varik, together with his Latvian baking player Lauris Daiders, was initially going to participate in one or more ONKs, but this turned out not to fit entirely into the schedule of the fast team from Eastern Europe. The first real showdown of 2019 will only take place in Lommel with the competition in the sand. However, one should not be surprised if team Varik simply nestles among the absolute top in Lommel. The team now knows almost every grain of sand there because instead of participating in the ONKs, Varik/Daiders chose to organize a multi-day training on the circuit that will serve as the first World Cup sidecar cross location this weekend.
Behind the seven teams that want to battle it out to see who will end up on the World Cup podium during the GPs this season, there is a whole contingent of sub-toppers who all want to improve and advance to the absolute top this year.
In all ONKs we also saw the two best British teams at the start. Team Wilkinson and team Brown performed well in the sand. Both teams will start with a different baking player this year. Wilkinson will be assisted by Ryan Humphrey and the experienced Stuart Brown has enlisted the services of Josh Chamberlain this year, the racing driver with whom he has already won a GP and once finished third in the World Cup sidecars. Both Wilkinson and Brown just missed out on joining the top riders in the ONK races, but they showed that they can cross well and thoroughly in the sand and it is also questionable whether they really showed their skills in Lochem and Varsseveld. .....They will certainly have to do this next weekend, also because the competition in the sub-top is fierce.
We can also expect a lot from some other home teams!
The Belgian Davy Sanders with his new baking player Lari Kunnas from Finland, for example. The team finished ninth in the final rankings last year and will want to show off in Lommel to the cheers of the home crowd. This also applies to that other fast Belgian, Arne Dierckens, who will start in 2019 together with Robbie Bax. Dierckens will hardly be able to wait to drive a real race because the Lommel GP will only be his first race after his intense crash last year during the sidecar cross of nations in Denmark. Dierckens knows how the game works in Lommel because last year he was on the GP podium at the end of the day.
Someone who certainly knows how the sidecar cross works is Nestor Kristof Santermans, who again uses the services of the Lithuanian Kostas Beleckas in the sidecar this year. Santermans is also a clear candidate for a top five position in the sand at the end of the day.
The Dutchman Gert van Werven will return this year with 'old' love Peter Beunk who is back in the sidecar. Van Werven/Beunk can provide a surprise on a good day and the beautiful ice-cold white and blue Jopa outfits are definitely something to keep an eye on.
The young Keuben/Rietman team wants to definitively settle into the top 15 of the global sidecar cross this season. They had mixed results in the previous ONKs, but the riding in the sand looked tight. The motto for team Keuben is to keep their heads down and stay out of trouble and do what they do best, just go fast in the sand. This way, one should not be surprised if Keuben/Rietman soon leave Lommel with a big smile on their face, having stolen a truckload of World Cup points from all those other World Cup teams in their quest to end up in the top 15 of the 2019 Sidecar Cross World Championship.
Competition for those top 15 places in the World Championships will certainly have to be expected from Switzerland from the Cuche brothers, who showed solid performances in all ONKs and will therefore be well prepared for the competition in the sand towards Lommel. Compatriot Marko Heinzer with Betschart in his left sidecar can also do quite a bit in the sand and rode brutally in the top three in qualifying in Lommel last year, to everyone's surprise. They will certainly want to repeat this feat next weekend, preferably on Sunday of course!
The question is whether the Austrian team Weiss/Schneider will be able to start in Lommel now that rider Weiss is recovering from a wrist fracture, but if they are there, they will do everything they can to take home as many World Cup points as possible. .
The Italian Zenno Compalati, who often starts quickly, also wants to definitively enter the top 15 of the World Cup this season and has found a good player in the experienced Frenchman Bastien Chopin to realize those ambitions. Compalati's old baking player, the Italian Lemuel Ravera, will be in the box this season with the German Tobias Blank, who hopes that the bad luck devil will no longer be at his side in 2019. In 2019, it will be time for team Blank to finally achieve a top World Cup position.
This also applies to the other German teams such as the Reimann brothers, Sieber/Klooz, team Prokesch and Adrian Peter, who has the Czech baking player Zatloukal in the box this season. Hopefully for all German fans, these teams can show their best side this season. Unfortunately, we only see two teams from the Czech Republic now that team Cermak will unfortunately not be in action this year. The Horch brothers and team Kolencik will have to push the throttle to make something of it in Lommel.
The latter applies to many teams from home and abroad that have to go beyond themselves.
After all, no fewer than fifty sidecars have registered with the FIM for the GP in Lommel and only thirty are allowed to start on Sunday.
Many teams from the Benelux can therefore really use the support of supporters in Lommel and already on Saturday, a lot of support will be needed to cheer the Belgians and Dutch into the Grand Prix!
In addition to the previously mentioned teams, we see four sidecars from Belgium on the list. This is the team of Dylan Boussy, Kelly Debruyne/Jens Mans, Verhelst/Debruyne and Glenn van der Schralen, who will have the Dutchman Jimmy van Gennip at his side this year.
In addition to teams previously discussed, we see five more teams from the Netherlands on the registration list. Unfortunately, Keuben/De Laat are missing due to the serious injury of Mike Keuben, who is fortunately recovering wonderfully quickly and has already been spotted along the track in Lochem and Varsseveld. Unfortunately, this GP came too early for the team that can really put their left sidecar to good use, normally in Lommel. On the list is the other fast left sidecar from the Netherlands from Kops/Lambrechts. We also see Thom van de Lagemaat/Han van Hal and Frank Mulders/Aivar van der Wiel on the list.
ONK debutants Wisselink/Sloot and Smit/Wesselink have also registered for the GP in Lommel, but qualifying in itself will be a challenge for these teams among the global top of sidecar cross.
More practical information, complete participant lists and timetable can be found here:
www.wk-sidecars-lommel.be
Text: Emil Bilars
Photos: Orangehat.nl
Cover photo: MC Maasland
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