British adventure sports entrepreneur Alex Ledger has an idea for a new racing series; small rally-prepped ATV-type things blasting up and down ski slopes. Say no more and sign me up!
Ledger runs a "paramotoring" school (learn more about that here... because, whoa) and he's keen to expand his reach into extreme-everything. So far his "Alpine Climb" idea is just a pitch in what looks like a Kickstartery contest sponsored by Virgin Atlantic megamogul Richard Branson (you can find out more about that here) but I don't think you'd need billionaire money to make this happen.
Ski spots already have the physical (and legal) infrastructure for hosting extreme sports events, and they're ready to handle a large influx of spectators. This seems like a solid opportunity to extend a ski resort's working season and get more people into their overpriced restaurants.
Ledger's picturing "the equivalent of a winter F1 series," which is a little ambitious, but if you drop the idea of "bespoke racing vehicles" and use UTVs people can buy off the shelf... Then replace "professional racing drivers" with rednecks who have no fear of death, I bet we could could get this green-lit in short order!
We've already seen what high-horsepower racing trucks can do on ski fields. Shrinking weight, power, and cost of competition seems like the ticket to blow out something like the Alpine Climb.
Image by Raphael Orlove
Andrew P. Collins is Jalopnik's off-road and adventure guy. Shoot him an email at andrew@jalopnik.com or hit him up on Twitter @andr3wcollins to talk trucks.