England’s Christian Burnham is also a former Grand Prix racer, and spends most of his time in Belgium, where he lives with his Belgian partner and children. He is also part of the promotional team of the Belgian Motocross Championships and has seen the sport change in recent years.

“We had a meeting with the environmentalists recently and sat down to try and get some things sorted out. It was clear to us that we needed to do that, to let them know that we will continue to ride Motorcycles, but we needed to find a reasoning between the two parties. They were open to our talks and I feel confident that we can work around this.”

“We talked about planting trees during the running of each round of the Belgian Championship, also using the water for washing the bikes and them recycling it. They were really happy that we had gone to the trouble to have a meeting with them.”

“We don’t have one permanent circuit on the Belgian Motocross Championship calendar; they are all circuits that had a one race a year agreement with the local councils. Places like Kester that used to run a Grand Prix is used just once in the year. The only circuits that are permanent in Flanders part of Belgium are Lommel, Genk, and Honda Park. They have circuits in the French part of Belgium, but most of the leading riders come from the Flanders area and to travel to the French part to these other circuits is difficult, they can better travel to Holland, which of course has many more circuits than Belgium.”

Sidebar – Where is the next Belgian legend

While Belgium is known for it’s motocross legends, there just doesn’t look like being a new legend on the scene soon. Sure Clement Desalle, Joel Roelants and Ken De Dycker show great form at times, and all three seem capable of fighting for a World title in the future, but legendary statues isn’t in their future just yet.

Sylvain Geboers feels that it might be another 10 years before a true legend is made in his homeland. In a surprise comment he elected the son of a King to be the next best thing.

“Belgium always had the best riders, but we used to ride a lot in the sand and riding in the sand gives you a good technique, also maybe we had four or five rounds of the championship on sand tracks and the Belgian riders would be strong there. Now the top GP riders live in Belgium, if you go to Lommel half the Grand Prix paddock lives there, so they are all riding the tough sand circuits, the advantage is now gone. Also many years ago we have the rule change that you couldn’t race in Belgium until you were 14 years old, so our younger riders didn’t get the chance to race, while countries like France and Holland. Now they have changed it back, so you can race when you are 12 years old.”

 “In my opinion we might have to wait 10 years before we see another legend, but in my  opinion that will be Liam Everts, the son of Stefan. He has everything and Stefan is bringing him up tough. I hope I am still alive to see that day.”

Burnham feels that while the sport might not have the legends of Stefan Everts or Joel Smets, but in comparison with most countries the leading Motocross riders in Belgium are still given star status.

“If you ask anyone on the street who Ken De Dycker is they will know. He recently posed in a women’s magazine, you might see him on television sometimes, or maybe Steve Ramon might be on a talk show. I think the young riders of today need to work on their skills with dealing with the press. Obviously riders like Everts and Smets were good at that. Motocross is still the fourth of fifth biggest sport in the country, I think you have football, cycling, off-road cycling and then Motocross.”