Along with brother Ronny and a group of support crew from the Valkenswaard facility the GP of Netherlands has become one of the most anticipated rounds of the FIM World Motocross Championship.

We decided to sit down with Mr. Roos and ask him about the running of the event and also his decision to put this year’s event on the Sunday and Monday.

MXlarge: Maarten, can you give me a little information on yourself? I’ve only seen you around airports a few times with Marc De Reuver and Johan Boonen.

Roos: I have been riding since I was three, so nearly 40 years. I used to race in Belgium but I hurt my back pretty bad and had to stop. I become friends with Johan Boonen and obviously got to know Marc through him. I was going to the Motocross a lot and started helping at Valkenswaard, but more in the background. Then the older officials decided they wanted to stop and I asked could I do it. I don’t do it for the money; I do it because I like doing it.

MXlarge: How does that work for getting the financial support for Valkenswaard?

Roos: We depend on sponsors, we don’t have government money, we have tried that many times, but the government doesn’t have money for Motocross in Holland. It’s tough at the moment because everyone is saying it’s too early to decide on their budgets, but it’s better to be too early than too late.

MXLarge: What I have noticed in the last couple of years is that the crowd at Valkenswaard has been very good. How have crowd figures been?

Roos: This year we had the biggest crowd ever at Valkenswaard. I think it has a lot to do with the way we promoted the event via television and radio. Also having Jeffrey Herlings doing well brought a lot of interest. We will now build on this and hope to make it even bigger in 2011.

MXlarge: I heard rumors that there will be another Grand Prix in Holland this year, but as of now Lierop isn’t on the calendar. Do you know anything?

Roos: I don’t know anything about another Grand Prix in Holland. I know in Lierop this year it was mentioned that Lierop would be on the calendar for 2011, but as you can see they are not. It really doesn’t make too much difference to us if Lierop is on the calendar or not. Our race is early in the year and Lierop would be in September anyway.

MXlarge: This year Valkenswaard is nicely placed. Are you having being the second round after Bulgaria? You also have a change running on the Monday in 2011.

Roos: We are lucky because the first round is in Bulgaria, then the round after us is in America, so we have a lot of interest from people to come to Valkenswaard. This year we asked Youthstream if it is possible to have the Grand Prix on the Easter weekend, but hold it on the Sunday and the Monday. Most people do something with the family on the first day of Easter and then have nothing to do on the second Easter day. It is something new to hold the race on the Monday, but we think it will work.

I think without riders like Marc and Jeffrey it would be difficult to get the media interested in the sport and also we would have to work harder to get people interested in coming to the Grand Prix.