Last weekend was brilliant. I got to experience a brand new adventure and it wasn’t even remotely on my to-do list of fun stuff. Now that’s a proper adventure.
A bit of a last minute holiday gatecrashing occurred and I am really pleased I’ve gone with my ‘fuck it’ decision making process and jumped right in.
The Championship was held in a small village of Innzell in Germany in an Eisstadion, which translates to Ice Stadium. I know, I amaze you with my skill sometimes!
Knowing nothing about Speedway races and even less about Ice Speedway I strolled through the pits and bagged some pics of the racers. The actual champions! Here we have my goofy face next to Dmitry Koltakov and Daniil Ivanov. As you do 🙂
I’ve learnt that they use 500 cc 2 valve engines on their bikes which is a switch from the 4 valve engine they’ve used until this year.
I hadn’t realised they have spikes on their tyres! Ok, call me dim but it never occurred to me that this would be necessary although it now makes perfect sense. One of those things, I guess.
The first few races were a little slow, it seemed very ceremonial and not very exciting but they’ve more than made up for it towards the end where some elbowing nearly occurred.
They start the day with ‘showcasing’ the riders on the back of a tractor trailer which I’ve found quite funny. But that’s just my sense of humour or the lack of it.
I was very impressed by their cornering skills. That’s getting the knee down and some!
So here you have it, a snapshot of my Ice Speedway experience. Would I do it again? I don’t think so. Would I go to Bavaria again? You bet!
The countryside is stunning, so beautiful in fact, that I have decided to put it on the map for my European trip in July on my motorcycle. So watch this space!