New look event set-up includes nine races on three continents.
Ice Cross Downhill, the world's fastest sport on skates, will start its 19th season with a host of premieres! For the first time ever, the fearless riders will be racing downhill on ice in Asia on a track filled with obstacles with a knock-out system. The Yokohama Sea Park in Japan will be the venue for the opening act of the 2018/19 World Championship season on December 7 and 8 with the first of three Red Bull Crashed Ice races.
These Red Bull Crashed Ice races are the core of the highest level in the ATSX Ice Cross Downhill World Championship. The winner receives 1,000 World Championship points in these ATSX 1000 races.
The races previously known as the Riders Cup series will now be called ATSX 250 races, where the winner receives 250 championship points, and they will remain the entry level races. New this season will be the more advanced and challenging ATSX 500 races that will be in between the entry level races and the top level Red Bull Crashed Ice races and winners of ATSX 500 will collect 500 championship points. The ATSX 500 races will be run on enclosed tracks with crash boards installed for the entire length of courses that will be a minimum of 300m long and at least 4m wide.
The Russia ski resort of Igora near St Petersburg will host the first-ever ATSX 500 race on January 26, 2019 with further ATSX 500 races scheduled for Mont DuLac in Minnesota and the season finale in La Sarre in the Canadian province of Quebec.
There will also be a spectacular premiere this season in the ATSX 1000 races with a Red Bull Crashed Ice race on a 350m-long ice track in Fenway in Boston.
Canada's Scott Croxall will be looking to defend his ATSX Ice Cross Downhill World Championship title this year in the men's division while Amanda Trunzo of the United States will be fighting to defend her championship title. There will be a new champion in the junior's division after last year's winner Mirko Lahti of Finland advanced out of the group to the senior competition.
ATSX 2018/19 Ice Cross Downhill World Championship Calendar:
7–8/12/2018: ATSX 1000 – Red Bull Crashed Ice Yokohama, Japan
5–6/1/2019: ATSX 250 – Judenburg, Austria
19/1/2019: ATSX 250 – Rautalampi, Finland
26/1/2019: ATSX 500 – Igora, St. Petersburg, Russia
2/2/2019: ATSX 1000 – Red Bull Crashed Ice Jyväskylä, Finland
8–9/2/2019: ATSX 1000 – Red Bull Crashed Ice Boston, MS, United States
16/2/2019: ATSX 250 – Uktus, Ekaterinburg, Russia
16/2/2019: ATSX 500 – Mont DuLac, MN, United States
2/3/2019: ATSX 500 – La Sarre, Quebec, Canada