Prior to travelling to South Africa, Scheider
had made 45 appearances at the international pinnacle of the sport – yielding three
rostrum results. While two times a DTM champion and a winner of both the Spa
and Nürburgring 24-hour races – as well as a podium-finisher in-class at Le Mans
– he had yet to scale quite the same heights in rallycross.
At Killarney International Raceway, however –
for the first time in World RX history – the entire field took to the track in
equal equipment in the shape of the all-electric ZEROID X1. The smart money was
on Johan Kristoffersson – who had won in the car at Mettet in Belgium back in
the summer – or perhaps Kevin Hansen, who had more experience than anybody else
in similar machinery from his junior days in the dual-surface discipline.
Few observers gave much of a prayer to Scheider
or ALL-INKL.COM Münnich Motorsport – the only team in the paddock with no prior
running with the ZEROID X1. The German driver and team, they predicted, would
likely struggle. They were wrong.
“I didn’t expect anything like this going to
South Africa,” the 44-year-old confessed. “I hoped it could be a chance for us,
because we know we don’t have the most competitive RX1e car, but we had no idea
about the ZEROID X1 – we were the only team that hadn’t driven it or had chance
to work with it beforehand. We had to figure everything out on-site.
“The level of competition in World RX is really
high, with so many professional drivers and teams in the field and it’s
super-challenging to beat them. I couldn’t believe we got it together so quickly
last weekend. It was always my aim to win in rallycross, because I wanted to
show everybody that I’m not just a successful circuit racer, I’m also capable
of doing well in off-road competition. I’d been hunting it for quite a while...”
The first person he thought of after crossing
the finish line in Cape Town was his father, Wolfgang Scheider, who passed away
last November, the day before Timo’s birthday.
“I’ve had such strong support from my parents
since I was small,” he explained. “Prior to beginning with karting, I used to
be a BMX racer. That’s how everything started. When I was nine, my parents said
it would be either a motocross bike or a go-kart. They decided that four wheels
were safer than two, which is why I got a go-kart and from that moment on, they
have supported me every single day.
“We weren’t rich by any means. My dad was
always very sensible with money and used to say you only spend what you have –
if you don’t have it, you don’t spend it. It was quite difficult initially because
we didn’t have a lot of money, but my parents worked hard and put everything
they had into my career and never applied any pressure – it has always been driven
by passion and enjoyment.
“We won the German Karting Championship, then I
moved up to Formula Renault and won my first title in car racing and then I
finished runner-up in German Formula 3, with one of my brothers supporting me
as chief mechanic. My family have always been with me in the background at race
events, and I know my dad was watching from above last weekend. He had always
been hoping for the day when I could prove myself in a different category as
well.”
For Scheider, it is very clear that family comes
first, so it is fitting that the next generation is now also taking to the
grid, with his older son, Loris, following in Timo’s wheeltracks – albeit after
an initial false start..
“He began karting and was pretty quick, but at
a certain point, I couldn’t join him at a race weekend because I was also
racing, and he said, ‘dad, if you can’t be there with me, I’d rather spend time
with my friends’,” the Lahnstein native revealed. “While I knew he had
potential, I appreciated his honesty and totally accepted his decision.
“Then, when he turned 16 or 17 and got his road
licence, suddenly he came to me and asked if he could race something! Right now,
he’s totally into Supermoto – he bought a bike and does some freestyle stuff –
but one of my targets sooner or later is to share a car with him in an endurance
race or even compete against each other in something. That would be very
cool...”
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