In world they are many forms of racing, racing from single seat cars, to truck racing championship, but one of the newest and most electrifying is the Andros Trophy. This Trophy is mainly a national French championship series, although it has made it to international status, as there have been three events at Sherbooke in Canada in 2003, 2004 and 2005. If you know your Canadian geography you'll know that Sherbooke is in the Quebec province of Canada, and it is known for its long ice winters with warm summers. This climate makes it ideal for hosting one of the events of the Andros Trophy. If you haven't guessed it yet the Andros Trophy is an ice racing championship, these events take part on circuits that are created out of the snow and ice; they are frequently created at ski resorts. The championship started with four events, but over the years this has gone up
to as many as nine; although over the last several years it has been cut to 7 events. The final race is known as a super final and takes place regularly in a stadium where hundreds of tons of ice are brought in to make an ice Oval. This super final is a showpiece race where no points are awarded for places, but it does allow thousands and thousands of people to view the drama of ice racing without having to travel to a remote ski resort.
The cars that compete in the Andros Trophy may look like the automobiles you see on the road today, but under the skin they are far from. The cars chassis is made from tubular steel, giving them a extremely strong lightweight design. They are then covered with a lightweight fibreglass body, giving them the illusion of a road automobiles. These custom-built race cars are fitted with advanced 4 wheel drive systems, coupled with six speed gearboxes and a 600cc motorbike engine, and all this produces a very light and fast race car with lots of grip which is what you want for racing on ice. To allow these race cars to be used on ice, further alterations are required; they are fitted with special tyres which have hundreds and hundreds of metal spikes in them to give them grip in the ice. All these spikes coupled with a powerful motorbike engine throw up large quantities of snow and ice, which can easily obscure the driver’s vision. This is why these cars are fitted with four wiper blades, two for the windshield, the other two wiper blades are fitted to the side windows. This is because the cars go around corners sideways, as in ice racing this is the fastest way. In the beginning of the championship series replacement wiper blades had to be frequently fitted to the cars, as the cold would ruin the rubber replacement wiper blades within a few events. Nowadays the cars are fitted with the latest flat wiper blades made from silicone, and these flat wiper blades are ideal for ice racing as there is no frame for the ice to build up on.
You might ask what sort of driver would be mental enough to want to race on ice, but there are no shortages of drivers wanting to compete in this championship series. There are some well-known names competing, these include 3 time F1 world champion Alain Post and Olivier Panis who won the Monaco Grand Prix in 1996. He was also in the running for the F1 championship series in 1997, until he broke his leg in an accident at the Canadian Grand Prix.
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