15 years after Stefan Everts' last MXGP race, Liam Everts makes his World Championship MX2 debut!
This coming weekend, Liam Everts will take the next step in his young career. The 17-year-old Belgian will make his debut in the MX2 World Championship. This is almost exactly 50 years after grandfather Harry made his debut in the Motocross World Championship on October 3, 1971 and 15 years and 2 days after father Stefan contested his last World Championship race (September 17, 2006) of his career.
For grandfather Harry, the mythical starting point of his successful World Cup career was Launsdorf in Austria. For Liam, his World Championship career will start in the MXGP of Sardinia in Italy where he will have to deal with an unforgiving sand track, set out in the sand dunes of Riola Sardo.
In the past month, with no European Championship races on the schedule and only two Grand Prix races in Turkey, Liam kept himself busy racing in well-occupied international competitions. He showed that he is ready for his debut in the world championship and for the Motocross of Nations.
The first race he rode was the traditional “15 August” meeting at the Keiheuvel in Balen, Belgium. At this circuit, which has a similar base to what we will see in Riola Sardo, some regular World Championship MX2 and EMX250 riders were at the starting gate. This strong starting field made this race perfect to test his level against the strong riders from the MX2 World Championship: Tom Vialle, Jago Geerts but also against Jed Beaton, Rene Hofer and others. Liam immediately showed his pace in the timed training by clocking the third fastest time! In the first moto his start wasn't that great, but from outside the top 5 the KTM rider fought his way past Rick Elzinga, Rene Hofer and Jed Beaton. At the end of the first heat he finished third, with only Tom Vialle and Jago Geerts ahead of him.
In the second heat Liam started right behind Vialle and Geerts. Those two's pace was just a little too fast, and he tried to save his third place in a battle with Jed Beaton. But halfway through the race, Jed Beaton moved into third place and Liam finished fourth. In the super final the top 15 of the 450 class and 250 class competed against each other, Liam rode a solid race. He managed to finish ninth overall in this race, becoming the second 250/MX2 rider, behind Jago Geerts. Racing between machines that are 200cc more powerful is not fun, not fair and not interesting for the fans. But with the MXoN coming and Liam being selected to ride the 250cc machine in the MX2 class he will have to race between these machines twice. So this was a very interesting experience for the Foodmaker sponsored youngster.
After the race at Keiheuvel, Liam rode two ADAC MX Youngster Cup races. The Belgian lost all chances of winning the title by not riding the race in Dreetz. Instead, he chose to race in front of his home crowd at the Keiheuvel in Belgium. Now the plan was to win heats and possibly take overall victories. This plan came together perfectly at Fürstlich Drehna, a circuit where he also took the overall in the 2018cc class in 85. The youngster from Lummen dominated the event by finishing second in the first heat and winning the second and third heats! These results together gave him the overall victory, with 72 points! Chance?
Last weekend the last ADAC MX Youngster Cup race of the season was held in Reutlingen. On this circuit with hard surfaces, Liam again took the overall victory. Less dominant than in the victory in Fürstlich Drehna, but with a fourth place in the first heat, a heat victory in the second heat and again a fourth place, he scored 61 points, and that was enough for the overall victory in Reutlingen!
Because of these two great results in the ADAC MX Youngster Cup, Liam finished third in the championship! Looking back on the past month and all the positive results, we can say that the debut in the MX2 World Championship could not have come at a better time for the 17-year-old Belgian!
Photos: Gino Maes
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