How Ice Racing In Canada Came About And The Kinds Of Motors Which Are Allowed In Today’s Amateur Events

September 1st, 2010 Posted in Boating

Ever since the race car was created, people have wanted to race each other. In a lot of the world it was on paved roads, but in places like Norway it was on the stony tracks which make up a lot of their roads. The professional racing like rallying and Formula One owe their origins to these founders of paved and gravel motor racing. In places like Canada and the Alpine regions of France the motor racings were not possible because of the cold weather which covered any road in ice, so they begun racing on the frozen lakes and rivers and the motor sport of ice racing was created. The reason why, in these regions of the world, why they did not begin motor racing on the roads was because they were too hazardous, as racing on ice is very tricky. When you get it wrong you are going to hit something and when that something is a solid tree it’s going to hurt a lot. So by moving their racing onto frozen lakes, where the wind tends to sweep the snow off the lake and pile it up round the edges, this means that when a mistake is made, the race cars tend to slide off and hit a pile of snow which is a lot softer than a tree.

Ice racing has mainly remained an nonprofessional motorsport, but there is a warm professional championship called the Andros Trophy in France. In this professional championship they use custom built ice racing automobiles, but in the world of nonprofessional racing this luxury can rarely be afforded. There are some rules of the motorsport to try and make sure everyone is competing on an even playing field. They are four type of motor vehicles, and they are all limited to a maximum engine size of 3000cc. Class1 is for all rear wheel drive and short wheelbase motor vehicles, class2 is for front engine motor vehicles with front wheel drive and short wheelbase, class3 is for front engine motor vehicles with front wheel drive and a long wheelbase, and class4 is for four-wheel-drive motor vehicles. There are two types of races that these classes of vehicles can run in. There are rubber to ice races and metal to ice races. Rubber to ice tyres are road tyres with no stance, and metal to ice tyres are rubber tyres with titanium studs in them that seriously improve grip on the ice.

Any type of race car from saloon to small 4×4′s are allowed to race in these ice races, they can have a manual transmission or an automatic. They do need a little modification for safety reasons and for the rubber to ice races all that needs to be done is any plastic lights and plastic around the outside of the race car need to be removed, and the bumpers adapted so they will not hook together. Also, the back of the race car is painted with patches of high visibility paint, as visibility can be very low when ice racing. With the exception of a race helmet, these are the only modifications required to compete in rubber to ice races. To race in the metal to ice races your race car must be fitted with a roll cage and a four point harness, this is because the studded tyres produce a lot more grip and therefore the cars go much faster.

Although not a requirement, it is advised that you fit a good quality wiper blade. There are many types of replacement wiper blades on the market that would meet this requirement. The best replacement wiper blades to use are flat wiper blades made from silicone, and this is because silicon wiper blades will work happily in temperatures as low as -60° C, whilst normal rubber wiper blades will be unusable at that temperature when ice racing takes place. The flat wiper blades are advisedbecause of their frameless design; this means that ice and snow cannot build up on the frame stopping it from following the contours of the windscreen.