Ice Speedway racing in China

[Bavarian 765]

There's a couple of intersting YouTube Videos showing ice racing (and even real speedway-on-ice) in the town of Suifenhe in the People's Republic of China !

This demonstation was done in January of 2016 by a touring troupe of Russian Ice Speedway riders and officials of the Ussurijsk Speedway Club.

Ice Racing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX5nljBdpio

Speedway-on-Ice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Oe73te35P4

 

 

 

 

[Bavarian 765]

Maybe it is of interest to tell You about the very first time an ice speedway meeting was held in China. It was in the year of 2005. The initiative came from Russia. They optained permission to rent the stadium (with a capacity of 65,000 !!!) in the 3-million town of Harbin, the capital of China's Manchuria Province.

The Russians themselves had to prepare the track for ice racing, since the Chinese had no idea how to do this. Work started weeks in advance, as it took many days and nights of constantly flooding the ground with water until the whole infield of the stadium was thick enough frozen and covered with solid ice. Track preparation was successfully completed in time, helped by the constant frost with night temperatures falling as low as minus 25 degrees Celsius.

The Russian ice speedway promoters were hoping to attrract a big crowd, maybe 10, 20, or even 30,000 as they would present some of the world's best riders at China's very first ice speedway event. Sixteen riders from Russia, and two Swedes (Posa Serenius and Stefan Svensson) travelled to China. Well, only fifteen of the Russian arrived, as one of them, Sergei Baltachev was without a passport and never got across the Chinese border.

During the week, the riders did public practise sessions in the Stadium. It was agreed that some Chinese motocross riders would be there to try ice racing and to be given expert advise of how to ride an ice speedway machine. Indeed, a few Chinese motorcycle racers came to see what ice racing was all about. They looked on, not in horror, but with apprehension. In any case, none of them wanted to try this new kind of racing. There was only one motorcyclist among the spectators who was brave enough to sit on a bike behind rider Nail Galiakberov and went out with him on the track. Galiakberov had to stop riding when the Chinese sitting behind and clanging on to him constantly tried to put the breaks on by putting his feet on the ice. Galiakberov then let the Chinese sit in front of him, and the Chinaman grew bolder, and eventually went round for a lap on his own - slowly, in first gear.

After two days of riding just like that, it was time for real racing, over two days, with sixteen riders in twenty heats. There were only a few hundred spectators in the huge stadium, which was a huge disappointment for the organisers. On the first raceday, when it was very cold and the ice cleaning took a long time, it was decided to end the meeting after sixteen heats. Andrei Shishchev from Ufa was the leader at this moment with eleven points from his four rides. But he did not keep his lead on the second day, when another twenty heats were contested and the 35-year-old Eduard Ivankov from Blagoveshensk took first place ahead of Ufa's Nikolai Akimov and Andrei Shishchev. Over two days Ivankov was the victor of the first ever ice speedway meeting in China. Shishchev finished second in this historic event. 

 

 

[Icicle 896]

I have often wondered where that odd clip of racing was from, as it looked like China, now I know! Ta.. Looks a small , a bit puzzled crowd.!