How Ice Racing In Canada Came About And The Classes Of Race Cars Which Are Allowed In Today’s Amateur Races
Posted in Fly Fishing Gear on the August 29, 2010
Ever since the race car was created, people have wanted to race each other. In most of the world it was on ash felt roads, but in places like Denmark it was on the gravel paths which make up almost of their roads. The professional motorsport like World Rallying Championship and F1 owe their origins to these pioneers of ash felt and gravel motor racing. In places like Canada and the Alpine districts of France the racings were not possible because of the snowy weather which covered any road in ice, so they started racing on the icy lakes and rivers and the motor sport of ice racing was invented. The reason why, in these districts of the world, why they did not start motor racing on the roads was because they were too dangerous, as racing on ice is 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 icy lakes, where the wind tends to push the snow off the lake and pile it up round the lake, this means that when a mistake is made, the motorcars tend to slide off and hit a pile of snow which is a lot softer than a tree.
Ice racing has mainly remained an amateur motor sport, but there is a warm professional league called the Andros Trophy in France. In this professional league they use custom built ice racing cars, but in the world of amateur racing this luxury can rarely be afforded. There are some rules of the motor sport to try and make sure everyone is competing on an balanced playing field. They are four kinds of cars, and they are all limited to a maximum engine size of 3000cc. Class1 is for all rear wheel drive and short wheelbase cars, class2 is for front engine cars with front wheel drive and short wheelbase, class3 is for front engine cars with front wheel drive and a long wheelbase, and class4 is for four-wheel-drive cars. 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 standard road tyres with no stance, and metal to ice tyres are rubber tyres with titanium studs in them that seriously increase grip on the ice.
Any type of motor from saloon to small 4×4’s are allowed to race in these ice races, they can have either a manual or automatic gearboxs. They do need to be slightly adapted 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 motor need to be removed, and the bumpers modified so they will not hook together. Also, the back of the motor is painted with patches of high visibility paint, as visibility can be low when ice racing. With the exception of a race helmet, these are the only modifications required to take part in rubber to ice races. To race in the metal to ice races your motor must be fitted with a roll cage and a four point racing harness, this is because the studded tyres produce a lot more grip and therefore speeds are much higher.
Although not a requirement, it is recommended that you fit a good quality wiper blade. There are numerous types of replacement wiper blades on the market that would meet this requirement. The best replacement wiper blades to fit are flat wiper blades made from silicone, and this is because silicon wiper blades will work quite happily in temperatures as low as -60° C, whilst normal rubber wiper blades will be useless at that temperature when ice racing takes place. The flat wiper blades are recommendedbecause 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.