# 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:
| 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 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:
| Date | Place | Race winners | GP winner |
| 23 April | Oss | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge |
| 23 April | Oss | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge |
| 21 May | Zabok | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge |
| 21 May | Zabok | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge |
| 4 June | Brou | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge |
| 4 June | Brou | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge |
| 18 June | Ķegums | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge |
| 18 June | Ķegums | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge |
| 2 July | Neeroeteren | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge |
| 2 July | Neeroeteren | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge |
| 20 August | Teutschenthal | Māris Rupeiks / Haralds Kurpnieks | Māris Rupeiks / Haralds Kurpnieks |
| 20 August | Teutschenthal | Josef Brustmann / Stefan Urich | Māris Rupeiks / Haralds Kurpnieks |
| 13 September | Saint-Jean-d'Angle | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge |
| 13 September | Saint-Jean-d'Angle | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge |
| 17 September | Rudersberg | Marco Happich / Mark Watson | Henrik Soderqvist / Collin Dunkley |
| 17 September | Rudersberg | Daniel Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Henrik Soderqvist / Collin Dunkley |
| 24 September | Ķegums | Netherlands | Netherlands |
* 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:
| Position | Driver / Passenger | Equipment | Points | Wins | Second | Third |
| 1 | Daniël Willemsen / Sven Verbrugge | Zabel-VMC | 341 | 13 | — | — |
| 2 | Evgeny Scherbinin / Sergei Sosnovskikh | MTH-APZ | 258 | — | 5 | 3 |
| 3 | Marko Happich / Meinrad Schelbert * | Zabel-VMC | 243 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 4 | Māris Rupeiks / Haralds Kurpnieks | KTM-AYR | 231 | 1 | 4 | 2 |
| 5 | Jan Hendrickx / Tim Smeuninx | Zabel-VMC | 217 | — | — | 1 |
| 6 | Andy Burgler / Martin Betschart | KTM-VMC | 211 | — | 2 | 2 |
| 7 | Joris Hendrickx / Eli Piccart | KTM-AYR | 180 | — | — | 1 |
| 8 | Stuart Brown / Luke Peters | Zabel-VMC | 165 | — | — | 1 |
| 9 | Vaclav Rozehnal / Marek Rozehnal | Zabel-VMC | 157 | — | — | 1 |
| 10 | Marcel Willemsen / Bjorn Roes | Zabel-VMC | 137 | — | — | — |
| 11 | Josef Brustmann / Stefan Urich | KTM-NPH | 117 | 1 | — | — |
| 12 | Jānis Daiders / Lauris Daiders | Zabel-VMC | 115 | — | — | — |
| 13 | Nicky Pulinx / Ludo Somers | KTM-AYR | 113 | — | — | — |
| 14 | Jarno van den Boomen / Henry van de Wiel | MTH-VMC | 100 | — | 1 | 1 |
| 15 | Carlo van Duijnhoven / Christian Verhagen | MTH-VMC | 100 | — | — | — |
| 16 | Ueli Müller / Reto Grütter | Zabel-MTH | 100 | — | — | — |
| 17 | Eric Schrijver / Ramon van Mil | MTH-VMC | 93 | — | — | — |
| 18 | Tomas Cermak / Ondrej Cermak | JAWA-VMC | 68 | — | — | — |
| 19 | Kristers Serģis / Kaspars Stupelis | KTM-Mefo | 64 | — | 2 | 1 |
| 20 | John Watson / Mark Watson | Zabel-VMC | 57 | — | — | — |
| 21 | Bertram Martin / Bruno Kaelin | Zabel-VMC | 57 | — | — | — |
| 22 | Martin Walter / Andre Saam | Zabel-VMC | 54 | — | — | — |
| 23 | Henrik Söderqvist / Collin Dunkley | Husaberg-VMC | 52 | — | 1 | 1 |
| 24 | Scott Wilkinson / Gary Burt | Zabel-VMC | 52 | — | — | — |
| 25 | Kristof Santermans / Patrick Nieuwenhuizen | Yamaha-VMC | 47 | — | — | — |
| 26 | John Lyne / Michael Turner | Zabel-VMC | 26 | — | — | — |
| 27 | Laurent Devoldre / Sebastian Devoldre | Husaberg-VMC | 20 | — | — | — |
| 28 | Thijs Derks / Roy Derks | Husaberg-BSU | 17 | — | — | — |
| 29 | Michael Poirier / Bertrand Poirier | KTM-VMC | 14 | — | — | — |
| 30 | Geert Devoldere / Guennady Auvray | Honda-EML | 13 | — | — | — |
| 31 | Werner Wittmann / Mario Wohlfart | Zabel-AYR | 10 | — | — | — |
| 32 | Andreas Clohse / Guido Schlabertz | Zabel-VMC | 10 | — | — | — |
| 33 | Marcel Grondman / Martijn Geerdink | Zabel-VMC | 9 | — | — | — |
| 34 | Roland Sutter / Sandro Michelleto | KTM-VMC | 9 | — | — | — |
| 35 | Patrick Fagerberg / Daniel Fagerberg | KTM-AYR | 9 | — | — | — |
| 36 | Wim Janssen / Henk Roenhorst | Zabel-VMC | 8 | — | — | — |
| 37 | Maikel Kuster / Wilfried Keuben | Zabel-VMC | 8 | — | — | — |
| 38 | Johan Smit / Bart Notten | Husaberg-BSU | 7 | — | — | — |
| 39 | Patrick Greup / Marc van Deutekom | KTM-VMC | 7 | — | — | — |
| 40 | Imantas Tamuliūnas / Egidijus Karaliūnas | KTM-AYR | 6 | — | — | — |
| 41 | Jens Bochmann / Stefan Progscha | Zabel-AYR | 6 | — | — | — |
| 42 | Jean Marie Ains / Bernard Jayet | Zabel-VMC | 5 | — | — | — |
| 43 | Baptiste Bigand / Julien Bigand | MTH-BSU | 5 | — | — | — |
| 44 | Andrus Vaks / Raimo Kaul | KTM-AYR | 4 | — | — | — |
| 45 | Boudewijn Gommeren / Steve van Tongerlo | KTM-AYR | 4 | — | — | — |
| 46 | David Keane / Andy Heighes | MTH-VMC | 3 | — | — | — |
| 47 | David Surcin / Landry Tessier | Zabel-VMC | 3 | — | — | — |
| 48 | Otomārs Skreija / Gastons Skreija | MTH-BSU | 2 | — | — | — |
| 49 | Herve Boursaud / Edouard Chereau | KTM-VMC | 1 | — | — | — |
| 50 | Guillaume Martin / Jacques Pilleir | Zabel-VMC | 1 | — | — | — |
* 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.