Column: the 2020 Sidecar Cross World Championships, A stubborn and sad story about the chicken and the egg?!
Column by Emil Bilars
I have already written hundreds of columns in my life, but I hope that I can make a difference with this one. Let's hope so. I'm going to try to look as objectively as possible at what makes this story 'sad' and 'stubborn' so far. Sad and stubborn are of course my opinions, and that is why this is a column. But that's not for nothing. My sidecarcross heart is crying.
That word 'sad' is perhaps almost a fact.
Next year will be the first year that the company 'WSC' has the sole right to the official FIM World Cup Sidecar Cross.
For 2020 there is now a GP calendar with one GP in the Netherlands, two GPs in the Czech Republic, one GP in Slovenia, one GP in the Ukraine and one GP in Estonia.
Of course I now hear the proponent of the WSC promoter saying again, yes, but all those other TBA and TBC dates (To Be Announced = to be announced and Lommel that is stated with To Be Conformed = to be confirmed)) means that there will be twelve GPs. The opponent of all this shouts as loudly as possible 'see, it won't work out, WSC only wants to make money from our sport'.
The fact is that TBA as well as TBC is of course bullshit in space. Why? It means nothing less than 'could it be that and what if and'... shall I continue?!? Because no one hears anything. Fact.
TBA/TBC simply means it has not yet been determined. Nothing more and nothing less.
Fact. A GP calendar has now been released in mid-December with six GPs in five countries. And that's sad.
I can't imagine that there is one individual within this story who will take this positively. He says, wow, this calendar is better compared to last year. Nonsense. A calendar without a German, Belgian or French GP is a farce.
And that is a fact, although it is also my opinion. But I think that is precisely the 'problem' in this story.
What came first, the chicken or the egg? You name it. And so the question is: Is the base of sidecar cross large enough to invest in it to make the sport bigger from your vision? To apparently ask a lot from organizers because everything will soon become bigger, or did you just gamble wrong and everything turns out to be a bubble?
Without petrol the engine will not work, but how and where do we get that petrol from and is the tank cap ultimately properly secured?
There is basically nothing wrong with a promoter with a clear line, a clear logo and ditto media etc. etc. Something can only grow from that. And that is good. But is that WSC logo stuck on a chicken that can lay eggs or on an egg that a chicken needs to hatch? And where or who is that chicken? So that is the situation now.
Let me just say that I think it is naive of people to say that WSC wants to fill 'its pockets' over the head of the sidecar cross.
How? Then the gentlemen behind WSC themselves would have been very naive, which I cannot imagine because they are not pancakes without any knowledge of the business.
I have sense too, so I wouldn't hire a small digger to shovel out my daughter's sandbox in the garden. I would seem crazy. So let's put this thought aside for a moment before we read on.
I try to state as many facts as possible, but the fact is that a lot is unclear at the moment.
A good leader makes decisions on time. A bad leader makes decisions too late or worse, doesn't make a decision at all. A good leader admits that he has done something wrong and also dares to make decisions that can affect him personally, but it is precisely because of such a vulnerable attitude and ditto decision that he keeps 'his troops' sharp and does not lose sight of the goal .
A bad leader makes his 'troops' restless, because there is no clarity, and that makes stalemate possible, causing everyone to do and shout. Desertion is the result. No matter how big or small the world under the leader is. This is a fact. Playing nice again to try to break the general trend is just a way to stop the bleeding. Eventually everything falls apart.
Yet I think that all parties, everyone within sidecar cross sport, want the same thing. More and more people are getting involved in what we consider to be the most beautiful sport in the world.
Only the hitherto 'own' stubborn way of doing things. Here we go again, the chicken and the egg. What's up now?
And in any case, one monopolistic leader without any body to which he is accountable. Is that basically good?
I think that the way in which the leader handles things, and this is purely my opinion based on what I think because there is more unclear than clear, is not working.
In 2017 I still see that WSC truck standing there in Oldebroek at the first GP of that year. Out of almost nowhere they were the men of WSC.
At the end of the path from the road between that hedge and those two houses, that was the first truck you saw. Looked good at first glance. Great logo, professional stuff under that truck. Ok, cool I thought. This can help 'our' sport grow. However, then the first blot on this idea.
I spoke to my buddy Luc Vanderaa. Our Belgian amateur filmmaker who went to every GP until this year to make a video and put it on YouTube. Free. Respect.
Based on that respect, we as a supporter group had decided in the winter to put Luc in the spotlight. We all made t-shirts with his head on it and 'Luc Vanderaa supporters club'. In retrospect, this had to be the case, I think that we had come up with it that winter and would roll it out there in Oldebroek in 2017.
Of course Luc Vanderaa is a big howler and I can say that because I consider him a friend and the same applies the other way around. Moreover, he is the last to deny this, because Luc shouts a lot, but he knows himself very well.
Anyway, so he came bawling at our campsite again, but this time he seemed really affected. He came to say that he had been called to that WSC truck and it had been made clear to him in no uncertain terms who the leaders of the WSC stuff were and that he now had to decide whether he would join them or he would have to stop. I can still hear Luc saying, 'They kept saying 'We have bought the rights for sidecarcross'... He was barked at when a small child wanted to explain this to us.
Friend or not, I always try to think level-headed and if someone is emotional he or she may exaggerate a bit, but there will certainly be a 90% grain of truth in the way Luc was treated then. And that was ultimately confirmed by the gentlemen of WSC themselves, in that sense...
Sunday afternoon 'rest' day in Oldebroek. As a supporter's club, we put on those Luc shirts and walked from the campsite across the road towards the small paddock next to the starting field of Oldebroek where Luc's camper was located. On the way along that narrow path we were singing and making noise. The first best truck we encountered was automatically that of WSC.
Well, reactions don't lie, and especially not the non-verbal ones.
All the gentlemen of WSC, and yes also the highest ones, under that tent jumped up in fright when we arrived and thought for a few seconds that a bunch of hooligans were coming in Luc's name. I can still see it that way. The fear of those guys back then.
That reaction said it all, of course. After all, if no harsh words had been spoken unilaterally from them to Luc earlier, that response would have been highly unnecessary.
And I think that exactly that is still the 'problem' with our leader of the sport. Everything from your own compelling perspective. I'm the leader, so I decide. Me, me and me again.
Nice and nice, and I said that back then, but that doesn't work in a sport that is fundamentally based on interpersonal contact. And that contact is still the most important in all matters within our sport.
With a few exceptions, in sidecar cross, for example, there are practically no sponsors who do something out of pure interest for their company, but they do so out of passion for the sport or out of love for a particular team. And if they do this to make their company bigger, then they are sponsors from the (sidecar) cross itself. Frame builders to name but a few. That's a fact.
I hear one of my media colleagues, and someone who also continues to look at the matter objectively, say years ago... 'the best deals in our sport are still closed in, for example, the marquee'...
Anyway. Nobody can do anything now. Only the leader himself.
Some people are still asking why 'the teams' are not standing up. How? Let me take our current world champion by the arm.
Etienne Bax. Someone who came storming into the World Cup with 'ma simpson' on the back of his helmet in a certain pose that we can certainly classify in the 18+ category. A beautiful Brabant villain who has done everything over the years to ultimately bring his sport and his team to the level where it is now. On the brink of death, won world titles, always wanted to promote the sport. Whether it is or was a crook, very important.
I respect the way he is where he is now. And that applies to the entire top who have gone along with this approach.
Oldebroek 2019, a really nice avenue on the paddock with all those top teams. An impressive appearance. Something to be proud of as a sidecar cross enthusiast as far as I'm concerned. And why, all those teams basically did that themselves. They fought for it themselves. For the sport, for themselves.
Do all those teams now suddenly have to address the leader, don't forget the monopolistic leader, about the fact that a lot of things are now unclear for the general interest? What does that mean for each individual team? The risk that they will suffer from it later, perhaps being thwarted in the Sidecar Cross World Championship? Would fear rule a bit? And then on the other side. There are now 6 GPs and if you start with only 12 teams that still see merit in participating in the World Cup... was that worth all your work and effort for your sport and your team? It seems to me a devilish dilemma for all teams, but the top teams in particular.
The only one that has to move on now is WSC. And don't push through your own will unsuspectingly. It doesn't work, otherwise there wouldn't be such a Micky Mouse calendar.
Then every well-thought-out party would have gone along with the plan that the leader had come up with and there would be a good foundation.
Again, a good leader is one who makes decisions, on time, and who has the ability to improve and challenge his own insights should that be necessary to achieve his goal. That earns respect and is the only way.
A bad leader is a leader who makes no decisions or half decisions. Or makes decisions that he makes purely from his own vision, which may ultimately be a failed one. He can continue with that, but in the end it doesn't work.
I sincerely hope that WSC takes responsibility, monopolistic leader or not. Become the hero or be the one who ultimately knocked out the sport and splintered it. And if the latter happens, then global sidecar cross and WSC's mission, whatever it may be, is doomed to failure in advance.
Photo: www.orangehat.nl
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