Ever since the motor was maded, people have wanted to race each other. In majority of the world it was on ash felt roads, but in places like Denmark it was on the pebbly tracks which make up most of their roads. The professional motor racing like World Rallying Championship and Formula One owe their origins to these pioneers of ash felt and gravel motor racing. In places like Canada and the Alpine regions of France the motorsports were not possible because of the icy weather which covered any road in snow, 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 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 immovable tree it’s going to hurt a lot. So by moving their racing onto frozen lakes, where the wind tends to push 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 novice sport, but there is a warm professional championship called the Andros Trophy in France. In this professional championship they use custom built ice racing cars, but in the world of novice racing this luxury can rarely be afforded. There are some rules of the sport to try and make sure everyone is competing on an even playing field. They are four type of motorcars, and they are all limited to a maximum engine size of 3000cc. Class1 is for all rear wheel drive and short wheelbase motorcars, class2 is for front engine motorcars with front wheel drive and short wheelbase, class3 is for front engine motorcars with front wheel drive and a long wheelbase, and class4 is for four-wheel-drive motorcars. There are two types of races that these classes of vehicles can run in. There are rubber to ice events and metal to ice events. Rubber to ice tyres are road tyres with no stance, and metal to ice tyres are rubber tyres with metal 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 a manual or automatic gearboxes. 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 adapted so they will not hook together. Also, the back of the motor 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 race 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 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 urged that you fit a high quality wiper blade. There are several types of replacement wiper blades on the market that would meet this requirement. The best replacement wiper blades to attach 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 rubber wiper blades will be useless at that temperature when ice racing takes place. The flat wiper blades are urgedbecause of their frameless design; this means that ice and snow cannot build up on the frame stopping it from working properly.

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