Sunday, January 22, 2006
Ice Speedway World Championship Quarter Finals
Last weekend we went to another interesting sporting event, which took place right in my home-town of Saalfelden: The Ice Speedway World Championship Quarter Finals. "What is Ice Speedway?" you ask? Basically, it is motorcycle racing on ice. Sounds crazy, and from a spectator's point of view, I have to say that it is! It is plain unbelievable how fast they race on ice and how extreme they lean into corners. I would have never expected this event to be so spectacular. Here are a few pictures:
The second guy from the left is the local hero from Saalfelden, Franky Zorn (http://www.frankyzorn.at/). Here's what it looks like when they go around a turn at full speed:
Keep in mind that this is on ice. It looks a bit like snow here, but it really is ice.
Here a bit more up close:
Here is a picture from Franky's own homepage (check out his site form more information):
It is quite amazing how hard they fight for position and how fast they go. The pictures don't nearly do it justice. We saw a few crashes that looked quite serious, yet they all seemed to walk away.
Franky Zorn is amazingly fast. Unfortunately, he had some problems with his motorcycle, but in the end, he came in second place and qualified easily for the semi finals. He was only beaten by the russian world champion Nikolai Krasnikov. I think if he had a better starting position for the final run, he might have had a chance to challenge him, but Krasnikov was pretty strong that day.
Anyway: This was a bit of a surprise to me. I never really considered watching an Ice Speedway event, but this ended up being amazingly suspenseful and exciting (and you don't get to see the world's best in any sports just every day...). If I can somehow arrange it, I will be back to watch next year's event...
Posted @ 5:20 PM by Egger, Markus (markus@code-magazine.com)