Heerenveen: Niedermaier with tradition and GP of ice / ice speedway

During the award ceremony after the final of the Ice Speedway World Championship in Heerenveen, Max Niedermaier suddenly stood on the podium with an ice cream stick in his hand. Instead of the obligatory bite into the medal, the recent medal winners happily shot ice cream, which Max Niedermaier shared with his opponents.

“Last year in Berlin, Steffen Höppner disappeared for a while after my victory and then suddenly he came with this ice cream and that’s when it all started for me,” vice world champion Max Niedermaier says. Already on Saturday evening, after the first day of racing, Max Niedermaier was happily sitting in the paddock eating his ice cream after taking second place in the final. Steffen Höppner put it succinctly: “If you drive well, you will get ice cream.”

This ice cream tradition was born when Höppner was still traveling with Christian Hefenbrock in his youth. If Hefenbrock ran a good race, he was rewarded with ice cream. It went so far that Greg Hancock was included in the Hefenbrock/Höppner tradition after the GP victory.

«Greg had won the Grand Prix the day before the league race and since he drove well, we also gave him ice cream. At first he was taken aback. Later he told us that it was the best ice cream he had ever eaten,” recalls Höppner, who now continues the tradition with Max and has now reached the winner’s podium.

For Max Niedermaier, however, the icing after a successful race is just icing on the cake, because having Steffen Höppner in his team is of incredible value to the world vice-champion. “Steffen has been faithfully by my side since 2010 and is everywhere. He is not only my editor, but also my mentor. He knows a lot about the ice road, and with his Russian connection he is a great help to me and has been for years,” says the Bavarian , thanking him for his long and faithful support.