Reinhard Böhler

Reinhard Böhler (1945 - 19 January 1995) was a German sidecarcross rider and the first-ever World Champion in the sport, together with his passenger Siegfried Müller.

He has also won the German national sidecarcross championship seven times, from 1975 to 1977, 1979, 1980, 1983 and 1984, which, as of 2009, still stands as the record.

Biography

Reinhard Böhler, a native of the South Baden region of Germany, started racing motocross in 1963, originally in the solo class. He soon moved across to sidecarcross, where he initially had to race mostly in neighbouring Switzerland because the sport was not yet very well established in Germany at the time. He started for the motocross club in Schopfheim.

Böhler became the most successful German sidecarcross racer, being the only German to have won the world championship and also the record holder in national German sidecarcross championships. He retired from the sport in the mid-1980s, when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He supported his son Achim in his, less successful, sidecarcross career and died on 19 January 1995, a few weeks before his 50th birthday.