Opinion: Sidecarcross, Maxxis problem, Josh Hill and the potential soggy future of hard enduro

I mixed things up a bit this weekend and went to a round of the British Sidecarcross Championships with the missus and kids as round two was happening pretty much on our doorstep at Preston Docks. Okay, it’s still a 30-mile drive but compared to most motocross events, it’s pretty damn close…

So how did it go? Well, managing expectations for a British Championship event I’d say it over delivered in many ways as the welcome was warm, the programme workable, the racing fantastic and the sweeties reasonably priced too. Noah wasn’t a fan of the toilets to be honest but by motocross standards they were bang on.

Congrats to the NETT team for making it happen so smoothly and also a big thank you from me for bringing top-level sidecarcross back to the heart of the northwest.

Overall it was a very positive experience with the only negative – which might have been a blessing given the tight nature of the circuit – being a fairly low turnout of sidecars.

Don’t Miss: Preston Docks Report: British Sidecarcross Championship

I’m not too up to speed with the rules and regulations of topping up entries for such championships, or the eligibility of competitors themselves, or even if there’s even a want to compete in the British championship but it doesn’t seem like there’s a shortage of riders who have the necessary skills.

Of course, the same can be said of the British Motocross Championship too. The fifth round at Desertmartin saw just 29 riders line-up in MX1 and 25 in MX2.

They’ve still got a way to go if the series aspires to be like the MXGP championship though as the initial list for the Indonesian GP had just 18 riders in the flagship MXGP class and two of them were Arnaud Tonus.

I can understand why the average MXGP privateer would give Palembang and Semarang a swerve but why would any British expert-graded rider not wish to race at Desertmartin?
It doesn’t make a whole load of sense to me.

Let’s hope things pick up at Hawkstone…

In other news drinks giant Monster Energy uncorked a cracking video the other night which features former AMA 450 SX Main Event winner Josh Hill shredding an abandoned waterpark on an ALTA electric dirt bike.

There are a few mind-blowing moments in the video – and a couple of heart-stopping ones too – but the biggest wow moment for me was when Hill jumped his machine off the end of a waterslide right into a three to four-foot deep pool of chlorinated water.

What’s bonkers about that is the fact that he simply opened the throttle and rode out of the other side – obviously you couldn’t do that on a regular fossil-fuelled dirt bike as they don’t tend to run so well with their intakes and exhausts underneath water…

So if electric bikes are the future – and signs are definitely pointing in that direction – then it makes me wonder how extreme the sport of hard enduro could potentially be in 20 years time as the bikes will in theory be fully submersible.

I know Red Bull Romaniacs head honcho Martin Frenoodleschnitzel – or whatever he’s called – seems to like getting rider’s feet wet as they start their day but he could then go a few steps further and make sure that the Romaniacs entry does four days with soggy undercrackers and vests, as well as socks.

That bloke really is evil…

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