The star-studded field in the IDM 600cc Sidecar class at the IDM finale in Hockenheim is impressive. Tim Reeves (Adolf RS Yamaha) and Pekka Päivärinta (LCR Yamaha) alone have a combined total of twelve world championship titles. They were also the first to cross the finish line in today’s race. Reeves, who had already clinched the IDM title early, won with a 3.201-second lead over the Finn, who, as a guest rider, does not earn any points. Josef Sattler and Uwe Neubert (Adolf RS Kawasaki) would have pocketed those points had they not been sidelined by a technical issue.
Their drama: The chance to snatch second place in the championship from the Swiss duo Markus Schlosser/Marcel Fries (LCR Yamaha) is unlikely to be as great as it was in this race. The pair had, in fact, already dropped out right at the start due to clutch failure. Had Sattler/Neubert made it to the finish, they could have turned the tables. Now, however, the German duo has the Swiss-German combination of Jakob Rutz/Björn Bosch (LCR Yamaha) breathing down their necks, trailing by just one point.
In the larger-displacement class up to 1,000 cc, the title race has reached a fever pitch. Andres Nussbaum and Manuel Hirschi (LCR Suzuki) have closed the gap on the previously leading team of Mike Roscher and Anna Burkard (LCR BMW). The Swiss duo won the race. John Smits and his passenger Gunter Verbrugge (RCN Yamaha) managed to squeeze past Roscher in the Sachs curve at the very end, pushing him down to third place. He shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment: “Something suddenly happened to the suspension. It didn’t sound good.” The fact is that Roscher and Hirschi will start the final race of the season with exactly the same number of points after this finish. It really doesn’t get any closer than this.