2006 Sidecarcross World Championship


The 2006 FIM Sidecarcross world championship, the 27th edition of the competition, started on 23 April and finished after eight race weekends on 17 September 2006 with Daniël Willemsen taking out the title once more.

Overview

The 2006 season was the 27th edition of the sidecarcross world championship. It resulted in a fifth world championship for Daniël Willemsen, his fourth in a row and the second with his passenger Sven Verbrugge from Belgium. The two clearly dominated the season with 13 wins in the 16 races and an 83-point gap to the second placed Evgeny Scherbinin / Sergei Sosnovskikh from Russia. A close third came Marco Happich / Meinrad Schelbert, the German-Swiss combination.
After ten seasons in the top ten and five world championships, it was the first time since 1995 for last season's runner-up Kristers Serģis not to finish in the top ten. Due to injury, the Latvian only took part in four races but still achieved three podium finishes.
The eight races of the season were held in six countries, France, Germany, Croatia, Belgium, Latvia and the Netherlands.

Format

Every Grand Prix weekend is split into two races, both held on the same day. This means, the 2006 season with its eight Grand Prix had sixteen races. Each race is currently 30 minutes plus 2 rounds long.
Teams go through a qualifying, usually on Saturday. Typically, around 50 teams compete for 30 spots on the starting grid, meaning around 20 teams miss out on the race altogether. Some teams did not actually get a race start all season, failing in qualifying each time.
The first twenty teams of each race scored competition points, allocated accordingly to the following system:

Retirements

At the end of the 2006 season a number of long-term competitors retired from the World Championship, the longest standing of those being German Josef Brustmann with 19 seasons in the competition and Belgian Geert Devoldere with 18 seasons, both first having raced in the World Championship in 1988.

Calendar

The 2006 season had sixteen races:
  • The Sidecarcross des Nations in Ķegums on 24 September 2006 is a non-championship event but part of the calendar and is denoted by a light blue background in the table above.
  • Passengers in italics.

    Classification

Riders

The final standings in the overall table of the 2006 season were:
PositionDriver / PassengerEquipmentPointsWinsSecondThird
1 Daniël Willemsen / Sven VerbruggeZabel-VMC34113
2 Evgeny Scherbinin / Sergei SosnovskikhMTH-APZ25853
3 Marko Happich / Meinrad Schelbert *Zabel-VMC243112
4 Māris Rupeiks / Haralds KurpnieksKTM-AYR231142
5 Jan Hendrickx / Tim SmeuninxZabel-VMC2171
6 Andy Burgler / Martin BetschartKTM-VMC21122
7 Joris Hendrickx / Eli PiccartKTM-AYR1801
8 Stuart Brown / Luke PetersZabel-VMC1651
9 Vaclav Rozehnal / Marek RozehnalZabel-VMC1571
10 Marcel Willemsen / Bjorn RoesZabel-VMC137
11 Josef Brustmann / Stefan UrichKTM-NPH1171
12 Jānis Daiders / Lauris DaidersZabel-VMC115
13 Nicky Pulinx / Ludo SomersKTM-AYR113
14 Jarno van den Boomen / Henry van de WielMTH-VMC10011
15 Carlo van Duijnhoven / Christian VerhagenMTH-VMC100
16 Ueli Müller / Reto GrütterZabel-MTH100
17 Eric Schrijver / Ramon van MilMTH-VMC93
18 Tomas Cermak / Ondrej CermakJAWA-VMC68
19 Kristers Serģis / Kaspars StupelisKTM-Mefo6421
20 John Watson / Mark WatsonZabel-VMC57
21 Bertram Martin / Bruno KaelinZabel-VMC57
22 Martin Walter / Andre SaamZabel-VMC54
23 Henrik Söderqvist / Collin Dunkley Husaberg-VMC5211
24 Scott Wilkinson / Gary BurtZabel-VMC52
25 Kristof Santermans / Patrick NieuwenhuizenYamaha-VMC47
26 John Lyne / Michael TurnerZabel-VMC26
27 Laurent Devoldre / Sebastian DevoldreHusaberg-VMC20
28 Thijs Derks / Roy DerksHusaberg-BSU17
29 Michael Poirier / Bertrand PoirierKTM-VMC14
30 Geert Devoldere / Guennady AuvrayHonda-EML13
31 Werner Wittmann / Mario WohlfartZabel-AYR10
32 Andreas Clohse / Guido SchlabertzZabel-VMC10
33 Marcel Grondman / Martijn GeerdinkZabel-VMC9
34 Roland Sutter / Sandro MichelletoKTM-VMC9
35 Patrick Fagerberg / Daniel FagerbergKTM-AYR9
36 Wim Janssen / Henk RoenhorstZabel-VMC8
37 Maikel Kuster / Wilfried KeubenZabel-VMC8
38 Johan Smit / Bart NottenHusaberg-BSU7
39 Patrick Greup / Marc van DeutekomKTM-VMC7
40 Imantas Tamuliūnas / Egidijus KaraliūnasKTM-AYR6
41 Jens Bochmann / Stefan ProgschaZabel-AYR6
42 Jean Marie Ains / Bernard JayetZabel-VMC5
43 Baptiste Bigand / Julien BigandMTH-BSU5
44 Andrus Vaks / Raimo KaulKTM-AYR4
45 Boudewijn Gommeren / Steve van TongerloKTM-AYR4
46 David Keane / Andy HeighesMTH-VMC3
47 David Surcin / Landry TessierZabel-VMC3
48 Otomārs Skreija / Gastons SkreijaMTH-BSU2
49 Herve Boursaud / Edouard ChereauKTM-VMC1
50 Guillaume Martin / Jacques PilleirZabel-VMC1

  • Equipment listed is motor and frame.
  • Marko Happichs only win of the season came with Mark Watson as passenger, who raced at the German GP with him.
OWIKI.org. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.