Get it? A cool time. On ice.
Last weekend at Zell am See in Austria the second of what will hopefully be an annual ice racing party, GP Ice Race, went off without a hitch.
The 26-year-old Ferdinand “Ferdi” Porsche was a major driving force behind the event, hoping to create the kind of enthusiasm for this event that his ancestors have created for the Porsche brand. The folks behind Luftgekühlt hosted an evening party, where Ferdi had these words to say about how the whole GP Ice Race thing came into being last year.
“The GP Ice Race is the baby of a friend of mine, Vinzenz Greger, and me. During our time at university, we could never work out why it seemed like so few of our generation were as into motor sport as we were,” he explains. “And then, one time when we were in Zell am See to do some skiing, we were looking at the spiked tyres of my father’s [Porsche] 550 from when it competed in ice racing. I knew a little about the races that had been held here years ago – but not much and I couldn’t think why it had been so long since they had been last held.
We started by talking to Hans-Joachim Stuck and Richie Lietz, asking what it would take to hold the race, whether people would come and so on. Then we met the mayor, the people from the local tourism authority and the Austrian Motorsport Federation and it all started to come together. Eighteen months later, the first GP Ice Race happened. We didn’t expect all that many people to turn up, so were really surprised when a few thousand did. I guess the motor sport community is quite a tight one, and always looking for cool new things …
We’ve already been blown away by what’s happening this year. Look at this – we’ve got Luftgekühlt here in little Zell am See. We’ve got competitors coming to my beautiful town, my family’s home for the last few decades, from all over the world – even one from New Zealand.”
This event has legitimately become one of the most exciting mixes of vintage and modern racing and road cars in the world. If you think about it a little bit like a smaller Goodwood Festival of Speed but on ice, you’ve kind of got the right idea. There are manufacturers bringing cars out of their museums that haven’t been seen in an age, plus collectors shipping cars from all over the world to participate. And then there are the sheer number of incredible drivers who come out to join the event and hoon some incredible cars around on the ice.
This one has definitely been added to my bucket list.