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Watch this video of the most insane sport you’ve never heard of

Published Jun 20th, 2016 7:30PM EDT
F1 Sidecar Racing Video

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The odds are very good that you’ve never heard of F1 sidecar racing before, but we promise that you won’t soon forget it. This crazy sport began in the late 1940s and racers used rigs much like the ones you might envision when you think of a motorcycle and a sidecar. In the modern era, the sidecar racing has completely transformed into one of the craziest sports we’ve come across recently, and it’s just about as dangerous as it looks.

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In a nutshell, each car is manned by two people. The first is a driver who steers and controls the throttle and braking, and the second is an insane person who climbs around the back of the vehicle and tosses his weight around. This is done in an effort to ensure that the distribution of weight on the vehicle is perfect through each and every turn, and then he ducks down on the straightaways to optimize aerodynamics.

It’s a complicated and dangerous sport, and crashes can be catastrophic or even deadly, as you might imagine. What does it look like in practice? Round 1 of the 2016 British Sidecar Championship took place recently and Digg drew our attention to the video below. Watch it. It’s crazy.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.