On Tuesday April 29 at the circuit of Zolder in Belgium, the second edition of the E-MX Race of Champions will take place. While in MXGP’s world EMX normally refers to European Motocross Championship, on April 29 E-MX will refer to Electric-Motocross, as some stars of the FIM Motocross World Championship have signed up to play their part in Belgium’s “Clean Week”.
Gas cans and earmuff’s can be left at home on Tuesday evening, as the riders will be lining up on revolutionary KTM Freeride E bikes. Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s very own ten-time World Champion Stefan Everts was last years E-MX champion and will be lining up again to defend his crown. Some of ‘the king’s’ (Everts) challengers will be MX2’s vice World Champion Jordi Tixier, last years European Championship’s EMX250 champion Valentin Guillod and Standing Construct KTM’s star on the rise Damon Graulus, not to mention local hero’s such as Greg Smets (the son of the legendary Joel Smets), Yentl Martens (the son of FIM 500cc World Champion Jacky Martens), ex Grand Prix rider Marvin Vandaele, multi-time national champion David Cools and two promising youngsters Dietger Damiaens and Brent Van Doninck.
In addition to the line up of talent all set to race for the E-MX of Champions title, there will be one anon who will be referred to as ‘The Stig’. The Stig will be in disguise the entire event, but is said to have the ability to take the title given his previous racing success. Everything over The Stig is unknown to the public. Where he come’s from, what language he speaks, what he’s won etc. All that is known is he cannot be counted out and he will be there to win.
The race will be held on a high speed and technically challenging course, which has been inspired by other divisions of sport such as BMX and Four-cross. The riders will have two timed practice sessions to start the evening with the results of timed-practice determining starting positions for the main events, where riders will line up to race four fast laps on the track. To throw the competitors a curve ball, a Joker-Lane has also been introduced and is more like a short cut. The Joker-Lane may only be used once throughout the four-lap race.
At the end of racing, a podium ceremony will take place and ‘The Stig’ will be revealed.
Race organizer Thierry Deflandre (CEO of circuit Zolder) explains: “We designed this E-MX race to build a bridge between motocross and sports that are popular among our youth, BMX and Four-cross. We want to achieve short and explosive races which will build to a thrilling climax. In our opinion with E-MX racing, which is a combination of both BMX / Four-cross and motocross, we are providing our younger generation with a new stepping stone into motocross and we hope this new form of motor sport can make our youth enthusiastic about racing.”
The race will commence on Tuesday April 29 at 18:00 (CET) at the circuit of Zolder in Belgium. The racing is expected to finish around 20:30, which will be followed by the crowning of the 2014 E-MX of Champions Champion and the revelation of The Stig!
Thanks to the support of Circuit Zolder, KTM, FIM, and the BMB entry to watch and support this event is completely FREE. So bring your kids, come along and join in the revolution!
Have a peak at last years E-MX of Champions race in the video below:
Text by Nikki Scott