Lochem loaded
By TMX Archives on 14th Mar 11
Sidecar-cross teams travelled from all across Europe to Lochem, Holland, for the opening round of the Dutch Open Championship.
Pictures: Bert van der Sluis
The local club is sidecar friendly and organises a championship race every year. Lochem is also the home town of famous sidecar competitors like Gertie Eggink, Daniel and Marcel Willemsen.
Due to the heavy winter all over Europe the sidecar crews have not found many chances to have a decent practice session. So with this first Dutch Open, many of them accepted a long trek to race. For the Dutch crews it was the first of a series of seven rounds.
With 37 teams present, timed qualification was necessary in the morning. This proved no problem for the British crews with the Millard brothers ninth in Group A and the British Champions Stuart Brown, with Josh Chamberlain in the chair, seventh in the other group.
In the first moto of 25-minutes plus two laps, Etienne Bax/ Ben van den Bogaart had a fierce battle with Belgian crew Jan Hendrickx/ Tim Smeunincx.
Hendrickx has switched from four-stroke to two-stroke power and showed he still can handle the powerful Zabel.
Starting fourth Hendrickx needed three laps to pass Visscher and Van den Boomen to put tremendous pressure on the Dutch champs. However, the young Dutch crew stayed cool and passed the many back-markers much easier to finish with an eight-second advantage.
Just 25-seconds later Jarno Van den Boomen/ Henry Van der Wiel finished third with Daniel Willemsen, partnered by Roman Vasiliyaka in fourth.
Brown/ Chamberlain finished fifth after a good race. The pair had started in 13th and could not improve in the early laps. However, once they passed Ton van Keulen/ Marcel van Wanrooy, Brown picked up the rhythm and closed in on a huge group headed by Russian's Scherbinin/ Kurpnieks. Brown picked off Derks, Van Duijnhoven, Grondman and Adriaenssen. Marcel Willemsen dropped out of the race and Scherbinin did not resist as the Russian was physically done in towards the end of the race.
The Millard brothers had more to cope with. A lousy start – back in only 22nd spot – did not make it very easy for the lads. Only by hard work they moved forward to eventually claim 11th.
Bax again dominated race two. It was even easier as Adriaenssen/ Auvrey held off Hendrickx/ Smeunincx just long enough for Bax to establish a nice lead.
Meanwhile the track was rough and hard. Still Hendrickx/ Smeunincx kept close to finish just two-seconds adrift of Bax.
Adriaenssen had a firm hold on the third spot as Jan and Jeroen Visscher held fourth.
Brown started in the same way as heat one, in 12th and moved forward lap-by-lap to finish seventh. Not enough for an overall podium but fourth overall was an excellent performance.
Daniel and Joe Millard started a lot better and was just in front of Brown o the first lap.
The Millards tried to follow Brown what worked well, until, at two-thirds distance, Millard dropped out of the race when in tenth.
What about the eight-times world champion, Daniel Willemsen?
Willemsen and Vasiliyaka started third but were never a threat to anybody. Passenger Vasiliyaka could not cope with the pace and was more sitting on the chair wheel than keeping the sidecar in balance. The duo still finished but only in 13th spot. For the next few weeks there is a lot of work for Team Willemsen to get competitive.
Otherwise the home GP in Oss could very well be a difficult story and far a tale with a happy – a ninth title – conclusion.
