The 2016 European Sidecar Final was certainly a very competitive race meeting with the event being staged on a very hot and sunny day at Vries in the North of Holland.
The over 2000 spectators witnessed some very exciting racing with riders not giving a centimetre during the twelve point scoring qualifying heats. Once all the points were totalled, the remaining field of twelve riders were allocated to the two (B and A) Finals.
With the winner and the 2nd placed riders from the B Final being seeded direct into the A Final, racing was again extremely competitive with the English team of Shaun Harvey and Danny Hogg just beating defending European Champion 22 year old Josh Goodwin and Liam Brown for the two places in the main A Final.
Here they now lined up against Dutch team William Matthijssen and Sandra Mollema (who had been unbeaten all day) + German crews Markus Brandhofer and Michael Zapf, Markus Venus and Markus Heiss plus Marco Hundsrucker and Corina Günthör for the ‘winner takes all A Final.
With all six sidecar teams lining up at the starting tape, tensions started to mount. There was then a false start as Referee Christian Froschauer deemed that one of the riders was moving whilst under starter’s orders, so all six sidecar crews were called back to the line for a restart. This time local favourites William Matthijssen and Sandra Mollema shot out from the start gate, and lead the race to the finish flag, with Matthijssen adding a fourth FIM Europe gold medal to his collection. Meanwhile behind him there was a close fought battle going on for second and third places, with the runners up position finally going to Markus Venus and Markus Heiss, and third place on the podium to Markus Brandhofer and Michael Zapf.
FIM Europe Jury President Dickie Staff commented after the meeting: “This was a very close and competitive race meeting with the spectators being treated to a great days racing. The volunteers and members of the Vries club must be congratulated for delivering a well organised event – it really was an exciting European Sidecar Final”.
Full results on FIM Europe website: www.fim-europe.eu/events/243
