"If you're afraid of hurting yourself, change sport."

Of all motorsports, ice speedway is the most Swedish of them all. To race with long studs on an oval track in leftcurved laps is an ancient Swedish idea. It's one of the few sports, maybe the only, invented in Sweden.

In 1933 the well-known rider style came, dragging your knee in the curves, as an idea of speedway champion Torsten Sjöberg from Hallstavik, Sweden. His bikes low frame and Douglas-engine scraped the ice of the curves when he got into skid with his short stud, pretty much like everyone else. During the first half of the 1930's he raced mostly on 800-3000 meter long tracks on lakes. Up to 3 men started in the heats and they raced on time. They raced with short stud, standing with a light skid through the curves. Like formerly known dirt track, that later became speedway, succesively the sport moved into arenas and 400 m long tracks. Torsten Sjöberg began making his own long studs that he screwed stuck to the tyres. He realised that on the blank ice, he was able to put the bike down in an extreme angle. Modern ice speedway was born!

In March 3rd, 1933, Torsten Sjöberg introduced the style at a race on "Allstadion", Stockholm, Sweden. A few weeks later he introduced it on Östermalm IP stadium. After that everything moved fast. The motorcycle coalition of Svemo was not yet founded and therefore no special rules excisted, but most riders started, before the winter of 1934, to make long studs. Torsten Sjöberg ordered the first custom frame for ice speedway from Sueciaverken, Örkelljunga, Sweden. Ice speedway became a popular sport all around Sweden. The upcoming 10 years and after the 2nd World War the sport grew extremely. Between 1952-53 there were almost 130 races covering entire Sweden, there were races on every Saturday and Sunday and many races during evenings simultaneously. Ice speedway series premiered in 1949. Getingarna (The Wasps) from Stockholm came in 2nd after Vargarna (the Wolves), Norrköping and the Wasps Thord Larsson got the most points. Thord was number one in Sweden for many years. He held the track record at Stockholm stadium, that was unbeaten until 1969.

In February 10th, 1948, the Swedish attendancy record was set as 16 541 spectators enjoyed a Swedish elite race in ice speedway at the Stockholm stadium! All races arranged from 1947 and forward became huge successes. The sport spread widely over Finland and Norway and riders from the United Kingdoms came to Sweden to try their luck. In the early 60's the Swedes exported ice speedway to the former Soviet Union. Some Swedes raced for display and were well-received in the former Soviet Union. The Russians were still riding on short studs and mostly with small 2t engines. The Soviet Motorcycle Society bought, Swedish Billy Anderssons, frame with a Jap engine, and built copies with Czech Eso-engines. A few years later the Soviet riders were, employed by the government, professionals and superior in the sport. Riders from all over the eastern states were invited to free training camps in the north east of Soviet. The Russians offered education and the proper tools which resulted in WC-status for the sport in 1966. From that year four riders were allowed to start in each heat.

The World Championships were settled through a number of section races in Sweden and Soviet. The eight first places in 1966 were received by Russians and Czechs. Gabdrachman Kadyrov from Ufa became World Champion and the best western European was Kurt Westlund from Gävle, Sweden. Kurt Westlund was, together with Bernt Hörnfeldt from Örnsköldsvik, the only Swedes that could take on the Soviet professionals. In 1970 the sport was introduced on the continent with the World Championships held in Inzell, Germany. A few years later the qualifying competitions were held in Grenoble, France and Assen, Netherlands, were introduced in 1974. Nowadays ice speedway is held in most of the European contrues as long as there are skating rinks. Riders from USA and Canada has arrived to learn the sport.

Erik Stenlund from Uppsala, Sweden were the first world champion from western Europe with his gold in Moscow, 1984. He received the title again in -88 and in 1990 Jarmo Hirvasoja from Finland split the eastern dominance. Up intil then, all world champions were Russians, and so it has continued up until today with four exceptions. 1970 and 1974 the title was received by the Czech Antonin Schwab and Milan Spinka. 1995 and 2002 Per-Olof "Posa" Serenius was the world champion, and four-time champion between 2005-2008 is Nikolaj Krasnikov.

All bikes in ice speedway has Czech Jawa-engines, one cylinder 500cc and two top-vents. They are driven by methanol and engine is greased by vegetabilical oils in a closed system. Measured acceleration is 0-80 km/h in 1.5 seconds. The transmitter has two steps where the first is only used in the start. A ice speedway bike can only turn left and has no brakes, brakes are not necessary due to the engine-breaks extreme power. The studs in the tyres are 28 mm long and there are up to 200 of them in the back-wheel and close to 150 in the front. The stud-engineering is considered an art-form and mostly made by the riders themselves.

This is a cover from one of my many magazines in the collection. Bertil "Getingen" (the Wasp) Andersson, whos nickname became the alias of the MS Stockholm team, Getingarna (the Wasps). Bertil was in the first iceracing series (team) in 1949 with "Getingarna" the year when the series ran for the first time. Together with Thordan Larsson and the Berglind brothers, one of whom made the "Berglind-stud". The photograph for the cover was rigged inside in connection to a motor-event in Ostermans in 1953. The bike is the SRM of Thord Larsson. Take a look at the fantastic helmet with "Getingarna" written by hand.