TMX Says: Dutch show a flair for wacky
By TMX Archives on 16th Nov 16
So it seems like the KNMV thats the Dutch equivalent of the ACU have figured out how to get 197,450 screaming fans to a round of their national motocross championship.
Basically they've joined forces with the promoters of Zwartecross to run the last round of the Dutch Open series at the weird n' wacky music, theatre and comedy festival.
Okay, the chances of everyone present being all there when the points-paying motos go off is fairly slim but usually the motocross section of the event is packed out and the atmosphere is always off the hook.
Even with less than 100 per cent attendance it's still fairly safe to say that it'll have more spectators than any other off-road racing event in 2017.
Zwartecross, started out as a low-key outlaw motocross race that allowed anyone with a motorbike, moped or scooter to get down and dirty. There were a few local bands playing alongside the on-track action and all in all it attracted around 1,000 people – 150 of them raced.
Word spread and the second edition attracted 350 riders and 4,000 visitors in total.
There were a lot of injuries and scared of having a lawsuit slapped on them the initial team behind the event hooked up with a local club who made the racing side of things more official.
From there the event flourished to the point it's now a firm fixture on the European festival circuit and attracts a huge following – a following that is gonna see Jeffrey Herlings or whoever crowned Dutch champion next summer.
It's definitely a win-win for the KNMV series. Not only will it make selling sponsorship so much easier but also put the championship in front of a lot of new eyes.
Okay, so it probably won't translate into Holland having a huge amount of new motocross fans but it'll still be one hell of a thing.
I guess it's like the Maxxis finale going off in front of 100,000 people at Glastonbury, V Festival or Creamfields instead of the 2,000 or so who ventured to Foxhill back in October.
Yeah, the audience wouldn't be so core but the buzz about the place would be definitely something a little bit special!
The weekend's Lille SX offered Arenacross fans a little insight into how the 2017 series might pan out as no fewer than five riders, who are signed up for the tour so far, squeezed their way into the top ten in the King of Lille overall standings.
That bunch was basically made up of reigning champ Thomas Ramette, his SR75 Molson team-mate Cyrille Coulon, Cedric Soubeyras, 2014 champ Fabien Izoird and new boy Tommy Searle – there was a pretty good performance from them all considering there were four AMA regulars in that top ten and it kinda proves the Arenacross line-up is totally legit...
It was interesting to see Tommy Searle really starting to master the indoor game after concentrating on MXGP for the past five years or so.
Still with a little bit of work to do to get on the pace of the leading Frenchies, with a solid few weeks of AX training ahead of him, he should really be a title threat when the gate drops at round one.
