STORY AND PHOTOS BY MARIO MARINI
he FIM World Supe rmoto rece ntly visited Belgium for the seco nd time this sea son, and KTM 's Thierry van den Bosch
continued on his roll toward a second
FIM Wo rld Supermoto Championship
title by collecting his fourth SI win in six rounds.
But the weekend tu rned out be a controversial
weekend one for the series due to concerns over
the Royal Dyso n Motor Club circuit's safety. In the
aftermath, most of the S2 class contenders elected
not to race.
The Belgians did not share the opinion of those
who dec ried the track as dangerous. Reigning World
Champion and local rider Eddy Seel, for examp le,
showed no hes itation in his decision to participate.
"We are professional riders, and since the FIM
said we can race here, we have to race and do our
job," Seel said. "O f course, to me this circuit is not a
surprise because it's just a few miles away from my
home, and this track is dange rous , but at the end
everybod y today could see that nothing happened.
So, if at the FIM they say we can race , we are professional racers and have to race. If somebody is not
capable to come here and kee p quiet and ride at BO
perce nt instead of 100 percent, the n that person is
not profes sional. Van den Bosch raced today. I and
T
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NOvEMB ER 17,2004 • C Y CLE N EWS
he wo n three heats, so I think he is happy with
Seel's decision may have influenced many 0
S I com petitors to race the GP. Whet her or not
was the reas on , the S I program we nt on as nor a .
It wa s a different story for the sma ller class, whe re
the top riders were united in~aki ng the decision
not to race, and in fact onl SIX en te red the event one Dutch rider and rest Belgian. A last-minute offer
from the promoter to allow the S2 class riders to
check t
€k on Sunday morning during the
warmup an to include them in the race despite the
action they had taken didn't change things. With
some observers reporting that some of the riders
where forced not to race by colleagues, the series
pro moter was disappointed.
"We respect individual and spon taneous decisions
from the riders , especially in case of safety issues,
but it's non acce ptable whe n somebody boycotts the
event and forces the riders who want to race not to
do that: ' ¥outhStream ge neral manage r Luigi
Zompetti said. "Safety is top priority for us, and it
w ill always be. It takes so much work to put together a World Champio nship, and today we expected
40th Anniversary
This crash in
mota two cost
Gerald Delepine a
mota w in, but th e
Belgian ca me back
to finish se cond in
the S1 Super Final .
