2004 Sidecarcross World Championship

2004 Sidecarcross World Championship
Season
Grands Prix	14
Start date	21 March
End date	5 September
Drivers
Champions	Daniël Willemsen Kaspars Stupelis
Sidecarcross des Nations	Germany
Chronology
Previous season	Next season
2003	2005

The 2004 FIM Sidecarcross World Championship, the 25th edition of the competition, started on 21 March 2004 and finished after fourteen race weekends on 5 September 2004 with Daniël Willemsen and Kaspars Stupelis taking out the title once more. For Willemsen, it was his third world championship while it was the second for Stupelis.^[1]

The season saw the cancellation of the Russian GP in Moscow on 15 August because of heavy rainfall, thereby reducing the schedule to thirteen GP's and 26 races.^[2]

Overview

The 2004 season was the 25th edition of the sidcarcross world championship. It resulted in a third world championship for Daniël Willemsen, his second in a row with passenger Kaspars Stupelis. Five time world champion Kristers Sergis, with Sven Verbrugge as his passenger, was their main rival early on in the competition. An injury to Sergis meant however, the pair would miss five race weekends and be out of contention for the championship. After this, Willemsen and Stupelis won the championship almost undisputed with second-placed Marko Happich more than 150 points behind in second place. For the following season, 2005, Willemsen and Sergis would exchange passenger, with Sven Verbrugge returning to Willemsen, who he had raced with before, while Sergis and Stupelis would form an all-Latvian team.

The fourteen GP's of the season were held in eleven countries, Spain, France (2x), Netherlands, Germany (2x), Italy, Estonia, Latvia (2x), Croatia, Bulgaria, Russia and Belgium. It was the first time that a GP was to be held in Russia.

Format

Every Grand Prix weekend is split into two races, both held on the same day. This means, the 2004 season with its fourteen Grand Prix had originally 28 races. Each race lasts for 30 minutes plus two laps. The two races on a weekend actually get combined to determine an overall winner. While this overall winners receives no extra WC points, they usually are awarded a special trophy.

The first twenty teams of each race score competition points. The point system for the 2004 season was as follows:

Place	Points
1	25
2	22
3	20
4	18
5	16
6	15
7	14
8	13
9	12
10	11

Place	Points
11	10
12	9
13	8
14	7
15	6
16	5
17	4
18	3
19	2
20	1

Retirements

At the end of the 2004 season a number of long-term competitors retired from the World Championship, the most successful of those being Estonian Are Kaurit, with a third place in 2004 as his best result and active since 1993, and Dutch Wilfred van Werven, third placed in 2002 and 2003 and active since 1996.^[3]^[4]^[5]

Calendar

The calendar for the 2004 season:^[1]

Date	Place	Race winners	GP winner	Source
21 March	Talavera	Kristers Sergis / Sven Verbrugge	Kristers Sergis / Sven Verbrugge	Result
		Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis
4 April	Castelnau	Kristers Sergis / Sven Verbrugge	Kristers Sergis / Sven Verbrugge	Result
		Kristers Sergis / Sven Verbrugge
12 April	Oldebroek	Kristers Sergis / Sven Verbrugge	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Result
		Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis
25 April	Aufenau	Kristers Sergis / Sven Verbrugge	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Result
		Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis
9 May	Asti	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Result
		Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis
31 May	Brou	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Result
		Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis
6 June	Pflückuff	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Result
		Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis
13 June	Jaanikese	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Result
		Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis
20 June	Cēsis	Evgeny Scherbinin / Sergey Sosnovskikh	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Result
		Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis
11 July	Zabok	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Marko Happich / Thomas Weinmann	Result
		Marko Happich / Thomas Weinmann
18 July	Samokov	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Result
		Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis
8 August	Ķegums	Kristers Sergis / Sven Verbrugge	Marko Happich / Thomas Weinmann	Result
		Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis
15 August	Moscow	cancelled ¹
5 September	Neeroeteren	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Result
		Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis
19 September	Rudersberg	Germany

The Sidecarcross des Nations is a non-championship event but part of the calendar and is denoted by a light blue background in the table above.
Flags for passengers not shown.
¹ Cancelled after heavy rain, only an exhibition race was held, won by Marco Happich / Thomas Weinmann, which didn't count towards the world championship.^[2]

Classification

Riders

Out of 56 teams in the points, the top-twenty of the 2004 season were:^[6]

	Driver / Passenger	Equipment	No.	Points	GP wins	GP 2nd	GP 3rd	Race wins	Race 2nd	Race 3rd
1	Daniel Willemsen / Kaspars Stupelis	Zabel-VMC	1	572	9	1	1	18	4	1
2	Marko Happich / Thomas Weinmann	Zabel-VMC	7	419	2	4	1	1	8	6
3	Are Kaurit / Jurgen Jakk	KTM-AYR	4	391	—	1	1	—	3	3
4	Evgeni Scherbinin / Sergei Sosnovskikh	Zabel-APZ	11	385	—	2	2	1	3	4
5	Stuart Brown / Luke Peters	Zabel-VMC	5	374	—	2	3	—	4	3
6	Eric Schrijver / Christian Verhagen	MTH-EML	10	274	—	—	—	—	—	1
7	Kristers Serģis / Sven Verbrugge	MTH-BSU	2	246	2	2	1	6	1	2
8	Werner Wittmann / Premsyl Novotny	Yamaha-AYR	12	231	—	—	1	—	—	3
9	Jan Hendrickx / Tim Smeuninx	MTH-BSU	6	224	—	—	—	—	—	—
10	Bertram Martin / Bruno Kaelin	Zabel-VMC	14	215	—	—	—	—	—	—
11	Joris Hendrickx / Roger van de Lagemaat	MTH-BSU	41	211	—	—	—	—	—	—
12	Frank Hofmann / Ludo Somers	Zabel-VMC	16	203	—	—	—	—	—	—
13	Marcel Willemsen / Rene Boon	KTM-VMC	32	191	—	—	—	—	—	—
14	Andy Burglar / Meinrad Schelbert	KTM-Spatech	25	164	—	—	1	—	1	—
15	Benoit Beaumont / Henry van de Wiel	MTH-BSU	8	142	—	—	1	—	—	2
16	Māris Rupeiks / Haralds Kurpnieks	Zabel-AYR	9	124	—	—	—	—	—	—
17	Henrik Soderquist / Tobias Sylwan	KTM-VMC	26	122	—	1	1	—	2	1
18	Josef Brustmann / Stefan Urich	KTM-NMP	20	100	—	—	—	—	—	—
19	Carlo van Duijnhoven / Tom van Duijnhoven	MTH-BSU	13	99	—	—	—	—	—	—
20	Nicky Pulinx / Dagwin Sabbe	KTM-VMC	118	96	—	—	—	—	—	—

Equipment listed is motor and frame.

References

1 2 FIM Sidecarcross World Championship – 2004 Calendar FIM website, accessed: 5 August 2011
1 2 The World Championship on Sidecarcross.com accessed: 31 October 2009
↑ Official World Championship classification 2000–present Archived 2013-10-16 at the Wayback Machine. FIM website, accessed: 9 November 2014
↑ ARE KAURIT GP RECORD The John Davey Pages, accessed: 9 November 2014
↑ WILFRED VAN WERVEN GP RECORD The John Davey Pages, accessed: 9 November 2014
↑ FIM SIDECAR MOTOCROSS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP: Classification 2004 FIM website, accessed: 13 August 2011

External links

Sidecarcross World Championship seasons
FIM Cup	1971 1972 1973 1974
FIM Sidecarcross European championship	1975 1976 1977 1978 1979
FIM Sidecarcross World championship	1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
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