The Xtreme International Ice Racing Championships, is the first AMA-sanctioned indoor ice speedway series in motorcycle racing history. Two and four-wheeled racers battled bar to bar on the all new XiiR Pro Ice Racing Tour, the crowd of over 8000 saw side-by-side racing action that can only come from the fastest sport ever to take place on frozen ice arenas across the nation.    

The XiiR tour is scheduled to roll through seven other cities in the next two months, and is sure to leave fans on their feet at every turn, with anticipation of just what will happen next!

At the Tampa race there were some local quad racers that gave the traveling crew a run for their money, and a few that just had a great time learning the ways of the ice. With our steady reporting crew consisting of myself (Bonehead), Howie Taylor, and Art Terry, we captured the moment in photos that you can see, also we have a video of a quad heat race for you to see. In this video is FloridaAutoRacing.com sponsored rider, "Groovy" Greg Groover finishing third, also you can see the 1200cc Harley powered quad ridden by The Outpost Bar sponsored Louis "Taz Man" Smith, put it on the others to win the heat. The crowd was entertained by the heat races, but the real action came as the riders lined up to run the feature races. With all the money on the line, it proved to be a task to put together 6 solid laps to take the victory.

In the Quad Pro Class "Taz Man" proved to be too strong for the competition as he made it look easy on the slippery surface, collecting the lions share of the pro quad purse.

The Pro Speedway 500cc nitro burning motorcycles put on some spectacular moments, as the rotating spiked tires proved to be just as much a hazard as a traction device. The 6, 4 lap heats were exciting, but just as the quad feature brought a challenge for the riders to make the 6 laps, so too did the motorcycles. The feature came to a quick red flag as a lap one wreck took some time to clean up and some down riders had to have some medical attention, before restarting less one rider who went out with a torn shoulder.

With the crowd on their feet for the entire 6 sideways laps, Kenny Olsson, after recovering from the lap one crash, battled with Anthony Barlow to win the 2nd race of The Xtreme International Ice Racing Championships tour.

In the division 2 quads feature, local favorite Justin Savoie took the win in a close race to the flag, Justin also finished in the top five of the pro quad class...  For this Justin, you get the "BoneKarts.com Hard Charger Award". The quad class was tough on all, but the racing was tight and these guys all put on a great show! The "Outpost Tough Luck Award" goes out to "Groovy" Greg Groover as he just had the "black cloud" that night, only getting to make the 1st heat race. Good news all local riders...  Next years date is already set for Feb 12, 2005, so get those bikes and quads ready!

These were some very exciting races as the quest for the checker flag unfolded, if you missed the show make sure to check out all the photos, and check out  the Xtreme International Ice Racing website for all future race results, and upcoming races in your area.

Special thanks to Anthony "British Bulldog" Barlow, and Louis "Taz Man" Smith for inviting the FloridaAutoRacing.com crew to an up close and personal side of the Ice Racing Tour.  I will say that the whole show was run professionally, and everything was as scheduled. I think this is because of the ladies behind the scenes that made this possible, the wives and girlfriends of the traveling riders took care of the pre-race paperwork and did all the scoring during the races, this all made for a family like atmosphere, that transformed into some great racing on the ice.

Take a look at the photo album online

till next time,