Saturday evening saw 3,500 spectators attend the European Sidecar Championship Final at Werlte in North Germany and were treated to an exciting evening of close racing, although the meeting did take a little longer than originally scheduled.
Despite extensive track watering during the preceding week, the very hot and humid conditions made it difficult for the organising club to maintain an ideal race surface as the meeting progressed. Following a discussion between the riders and the FIME Jury members, additional track grading and watering sessions were added to the nights schedule and this enabled the riders to race at high speeds on the 540-metre oval.
The ACU had five crews competing in the event after three crews qualified via the Semi Final and joined the two seeded crews. Across the meeting the line-up of 12 Sidecar teams competed in four qualifying heats – before earning their place in one of two Finals (B and A) – racing was always going to be hard and fast.
With the winner and second placed rider from the B Final being elevated into the main A Final, this race was always going to be one of the toughest of the evening. The German pairing of Manual Meier and passenger Melanie Schrempp leapt from the tapes, chased by fellow Germany pairing of Raphael San Millan and Benedikt Zapf as the two of them dutifully took their place in the ‘winner takes all’ A Final. British pairings of Shaun Harvey and Danny Hogg's evening ended at this point as they finished 4th in the B final ahead of Daniel Berwick and Mark Hopkins in 5th.
Despite the long evening, hardly anyone left the stadium as they waited for what was going to be an epic Final with six riders representing three of the FIME federations (ACU DMSB and KNMV). Defending champion Dutchman William Matthijssen and passenger Sandra Mollema made a lighting star from the gate, closely followed by Mitch Godden and Paul Smith with the German team of Markus Venus and Markus Heiss in hot pursuit. Despite the experience of Venus and the enthusiasm and speed of Godden, neither were able to catch Matthijessen, who roared across the finishing line to the delight and applause of the crowd. The 2018 European championship is Matthijssen’s third ‘back to back’ win and takes his total tally of European titles to six.
British Crew Mitch Godden and Paul Smith made history of the evening by becoming the first crew to reach the podium on foreign soil. Fellow Brits Joshua Goodwin and Liam Brown just missed out on the podium in fourth place. In the overall standings Shaun Harvey and Danny Hogg finished the night in 8
th place with Daniel Berwick and Mark Hopkins in 9
th and Barrie Bennett and Eifon Hughes 11
th place.