Marko Happich
| Marko Happich | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Nationality | German | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 1971 (age 45–46) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Website | Official website | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Marko Happich (born 1971) is a German former sidecarcross rider. Internationally, his greatest success was a runners-up finish in the Sidecarcross World Championship, achieved in 2004, while domestically he has won six national German Sidecarcross Championships.
After twenty years in the sidecarcross sport Happich retired at the end of the 2012 season.
Happich first entered the German national championship in 1994 with passenger Peer Kasseckert, also winning the German sidecarcross cup, a second-string competition, in 1994. Happich soon achieved top-ten finishes and won his first national championship in 2001, with Sebastian Böhme as his passenger.
For the next decade Happich became one of the dominant drivers in the national championship, winning titles in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2009 while finishing runners-up in 2002, 2007, 2010 and 2011. In the last two instances Happich missed out on the national title by just one point. He had his most dominant season in 2004 when he, with Thomas Weinmann as his passenger who himself had already won five German titles alongside his brother Klaus, won 14 out of 16 season races in the competition. Apart from Böhme (2001) and Weinmann (2004) Happich won his other four titles with Gertain Wijs (2003), Meinrad Schelbert (2006, 2008) and Martin Betschart (2009) as his passengers. From 2007 onwards the national German championship became an international one, allowing non-German riders to win it and increasing competition, resulting in Swiss rider Andy Bürgler finishing ahead of runners-up Happich that season. He officially retired from all competition at the end of the 2012 season.
Happich made an on-off return to the German Championship in 2014, racing in Geisleden in May 2014, coming fourth in the first race but suffering a flat tire in the second.
Entering the Sidecarcross World Championship from 1996, Happich slowly improved in the competition over the years and earned his first top-ten finish in 2000. For the next ten seasons, from 2000 to 2009 Happich finished in the top-ten every year, culminating in a second place in 2004 as his best-ever result. He also won two Grand Prix that season, in Croatia and Latvia, but never truly challenged for the World Championship, finishing 153 points behind eventual winners Daniel Willemsen and Kaspars Stupelis.
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