Like to take your Corolla, Tercel, Paseo, MR2, or Matrix out on a fresh snow covered road and hang the tail out in the winter?

What if I told you that you could come out and race your daily driven car wheel to wheel on a custom plowed 1 to 1.5 mile ice road course for just $45 a day? That includes a warm up session and three 20 minute heat races adding up to over an hour of seat time each race day! Sounds too cheap right? Surely any kind of organized automobile racing costs hundreds more than that right? Sounds too good to be true?

Then what if I added in the fact that all you need to race is a fire extinguisher a set of quality winter tires [Bridgestone Blizzaks], and a Snell 95 or better helmet? There are no roll bars required in this class. They are encouraged as is any other type of safety equiptment you'd like to have. But most people just drive to the lake and run their stock street cars. Notice how w-i-d-e the track is plowed. Plenty of room to race and keep a safe distance from other cars.

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OK, you might be saying to yourself, "I'm not going to race my beautiful street car wheel to wheel with some knucklehead that's gonna slide into me in a corner." Please allow me to explain: These are A.M.E.C. Ice Racing's Street Legal [SL] and SL4 [for 4WD and AWD cars] classes and we've had a strict "No Contact" rule in place for five full seasons now. It is the cleanest wheel to wheel road racing you will find anywhere. In fact, it's comparible to Vintage racing where you make darn sure that you avoid contact at all costs. Unlike SCCA, DIRT, or NASCAR, it is rare that anyone's car even gets a scratch. Obviously there's no guaranty of no contact, but these classes have shown that you really can drive your car to the race, race all day and drive it home no worse for wear. The SL classes are where you'd run your stock street car [no engine mods] carefully and with respect for everyone else's car on the track. I'd like to say it is a gentlemen's class, but I can't because we have several ladies running very competitively with us each season.

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Sound interesting? Please take a look at this new SL and SL4 class web page from our Adirondack Motor Enthusiast Club [A.M.E.C.] website SL Ice Racing.

You might not be aware of it but the Adirondack Motor Enthusiast Club [A.M.E.C.] had been ice racing on the frozen lakes of upstate eastern NY for 41 years. We run on custom plowed 1 to 1.5 mile road courses. Our most popular class is the Bridgestone sponsored Street Legal unstudded class that runs on the excellent Bridgestone Blizzak winter tires. Check us out at icerace.com for more info.

(IMG:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v452/blownb310/Ice%20racing/Cnv0040.jpg)

All you need is a Snell 95 or better helmet, a fire extinguisher and a number on your door! It's just $45 a day for 70 minutes of seat time! Ice Racing is clearly the best kept secret in all of motorsports. We have a very strict "no contact" rule in effect. Come and sharpen your winter driving skills and have the time of your life doing it! Cars only, no SUV's. Corollas, Camry's, MR2s, AE86s, Celicas, bring 'em out!

Michael Kamm
A.M.E.C. VP
www.icerace.com

That sounds really dangerous . . . . but also really exciting! I'd love to try it.

It's actually not dangerous at all compared to other types of racing. Think about it, there's nothing out there to hit but a soft snowbank if you slide off the course. Running on the spec Blizzak studless winter tires, the cars themselves have relatively little lateral traction and are travelling at roughly the same speed. So if you were to have contact with another car, you would both just slide off the course together [and immediately removed from the race because we have a very strict "no-contact" rule]. Ice racing is one of the safest motorsports on wheels. It also happens to be the cheapest and the most fun. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/s12.gif)

It does look like a lot of fun, I live in the desert. That would be quite a different challenge. How fast can you go on ice?

We run on custom plowed courses up to 1.6 miles in length. I have been to 80 mph in amy daily street driven Nissan SE-R.

Where can I learn to do this? Are there special courses or tracks designed for beginners? (I'm in Ohio, so you might not have any specific info -- I'm just wondering in general what one might do).

We don't provide any schools. There are some rally driving schools that teach winter driving techniques, but our new members simply buy a set of Bridgestone Blizzaks, and enter the races. We have a 10 minute warm up / track familiarization session before the races begin. New drivers are always gridded in the back so they can take their time, not have to worry the other cars in the race, and develope their winter driving skills in a low pressure environment. There really isn't anything to hit out in the middle of a frozen lake. No rocks, no trees, no gaurdrails. Just soft snowbanks to gather you up if you go too fast into a turn. We plow the tracks very wide to give you lots of room to avoid other cars if you need to. It works out rather well.

Wow. That looks really amazing but dangerous.

Around here, I don't know of any rallies or anything but we sometimes take the SUV out on icy lakes
and spin around ...I love it!

Hi all,

Sorry I haven't kept up with this thread this winter. It turns out that the Street Legal Class is now so popular we are almost overwhelmed with the huge car counts. Our scorers can only score a maximum of 40 cars on the track at once. We had 41 show up for the first race this winter! The popularity of this class has skyrocketed since we started the very first "contact-free" rules for any ice racing club in North America. People really want to race their modern high performance cars, but were afraid to do so before. Now they have a place to play nice: A.M.E.C. Ice Racing.

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I think the whole concept is very cool. I'm down in NW Connecticut and we certainly have big enough lakes and ones that are frozen enough to do this. I wish someone here would do this!

Vicki,

Northwest CT means you're only about 2 hours away! We hope you will come out and join us this year. We could use a few more Toyotas out there with us. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

(IMG:http://www.matduport.co.uk/Logos/bridgestone_logo.jpg) (IMG:http://194.39.141.68/upload/Album/AP_2514.jpg)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of A.M.E.C, I am very pleased to announce that Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tire LLC has once again renewed their sponsorship again with us this year as the official sponsor of the 2008 Street Legal Unstudded Class series.

The Bridgestone Blizzak will once again be the official tire of the SL and SL4 championship rubber to ice racing series.

(IMG:http://www.tirerack.com/images/tires/bridgestone/bs_blizzak_ws_50_dir_ci2_l.jpg) (IMG:http://www.tirerack.com/images/tires/bridgestone/bs_blizzak_revo1_55_ci2_l.jpg)

(IMG:http://www.discar.ru/data/large/137/WS60_1.jpg)
The brand new WS60
(IMG:http://www.icerace.com/images/Firestone%20Logo.JPG)

THANK YOU BRIDGESTONE MOTORSPORTS USA!