50 years ago: miracle at Monza+++Noll / Cron win World Championship on BMW+++BMW dominates the World Sidecar Championship right through to the 1970s+++20 Constructors' World Championship titles, 19 Drivers' World Championship titles+++

Monza, 12th September 1954: In the Italian Grand Prix, Wilhelm Noll with Fritz
Cron in the sidecar were the first to see the chequered flag from their fully
faired BMW sidecar combination. The upshot: it was the first the World Sidecar
Championship title for Germany and the first for BMW. For the two riders from
Kirchhain near Marburg, it was the third win of the season. Car mechanic Noll
and telephone engineer Cron had previously claimed two impressive World
Championship rounds when they won the German Grand Prix and the Swiss Grand
Prix.

Their season of success was complemented by two second places - in the Ulster
GP at Belfast and the Belgian GP at Spa-Francorchamps - and a third-placed
finish in the Isle of Man TT. It meant the BMW sidecar team not only took to
the podium in all six World Championship races of that year, but Noll / Cron
also managed to break the longstanding dominance of Norton in this discipline.
"What was decisive among other factors," Noll emphasises today, "was the
significantly improved injection system of our BMW." The reward: they took the
World Championship title home to Germany for the first time.

"If you drop out, you're out of time"
At the outset of the season, however, that was certainly not on the cards.
Englishman Eric Oliver, four-times World Champion and defending title-holder,
managed to claim the first three races on his faired works Norton with sidecar
man Les Nutt. But in the Feldbergrennen, which did not count towards the World
Championship, Oliver had a serious accident, as a result of which he was unable
to compete in the German GP on the Solitude track outside Stuttgart. That gave
Noll and Cron their chance. With their fuel-injected RS, they claimed BMW's
first ever victory in a World Championship race. It was a GP win which, as Noll
was at pains to emphasise, they would have managed on their own strength
because, "at the point when Oliver dropped out of the Feldbergrennen, we
already had a five-second lead. Besides, if you drop out, you're out of time."
In the Swiss Grand Prix, the fifth round of the season, Noll / Cron were the
first to cross the finishing line again. Their rival Oliver managed to gain
just two points, and
ahead of the final race at Monza both riders had drawn level first with 26
points each. But Oliver couldn't race at Monza either, and his arm had to be
put back in plaster. It meant all Noll / Cron had to do was score.

Full fairing for the World Championship title
But the duo, lining up at Monza for the first time with a similarly
fully-faired sidecar combination, would not have been content with that. From
the off they tackled the race in commanding style, carving out a lead of more
than four seconds a lap over the Norton duo of Smith / Dibben. The press was
disappointed that the big showdown did not materialise, but with their superior
ride Noll and Cron proved that they were worthy World Champions. After the
Football World Championship, there were World Champions to be celebrated again
- this time in motorcycle racing. "Our title win hit the national headlines,"
Noll recalls. Even Oliver would arguably have had little chance against the new
full fairing, the unique hydraulic drum brakes and BMW's supreme team strategy
in which "it is the brand that wins first, and only then the rider".

The first World Championship title of 1954 marked the start of a unique run of
successes in motorcycle racing. By 1974, BMW sidecar combinations had claimed
19 Drivers' and 20 Constructors' World Championship titles. Noll / Cron managed
to repeat their title win in 1956 after having to settle as runners-up in 1955.
And so a second World Championship title went to a sidecar combination whose
rider expressed his enthusiasm for the sport in the following words: "Normal is
too dangerous for me - a sidecar combination always stands on three wheels."
After this final World Championship event, the twosome retired from their
racing career in autumn of 1956.