Big Sky celebrates car culture with FAT Ice Race

BIG SKY — Big Sky hosted the FAT Ice Race, an international high speed motorsport event, for the first time in the event’s history. The two-day event last week featured car shows, races, a parade, and stunt drives performed in Moonlight Basin.

FAT International and the Lone Mountain Land Company, which partnered to bring the event to Big Sky, hope to continue holding the FAT Ice Race in Big Sky annually.

Sam Byrne, co-founder and managing partner of CrossHarbor Capital Partners, said hosting the race said he believes the infrastructure, buzz and relationships cultivated will help bolster Big Sky’s economy in the long term.

“We’re looking for more opportunities to host events like this in Big Sky where small businesses and restaurants are getting busy during slower times in both the winter and the summer,” Byrne said. “This is the beginning of what will be a broader annual program of events around automotives, food and wine culture, art, that will take place in Big Sky.”

Amy May, director of communications for Lone Mountain Land Company, said 5,000 to 6,000 spectators were expected to attend.

General admission tickets ran $245 for a single day and around $380 for the weekend and provided access to the general admission standing zone. VIP tickets were $1,944 a single day and $3,762 for the weekend. Holders were granted access to a VIP tent area, heated hospitality tent, an exclusive entrance, all-inclusive food and beverages, and opportunities to interact with the vehicles and race drivers.

The vehicle lineup included buggies, exotic cars, race cars and rigs modified to perform better on the snow-covered short track.

“The whole idea is (to) have as much diversity (and) a wide display of what cars have to offer,” explained Ferdi Porsche, the founder of the motorsport, fashion and lifestyle brand FAT International. “The point is to race cars, show off to the public, and celebrate car culture.”

In addition to drawing more than 100 vehicles, the FAT Ice race attracted celebrity spectators and drivers, including Grammy-nominated artist Don Toliver and F1 driver Lia Block.

While this is the only the second time the FAT Ice Race has been hosted in the U.S., the event can be traced back more than half a century.

The first FAT ice race was held in Zell am See, Austria in 1952. Dubbed the Professor Ferdinand Porsche Memorial Race, in honor of Ferdi Porsche’s great-grandfather, the inaugural event gathered thousands of spectators who were eager to watch cars race and drift on a frozen lake.

While the event ramped in scale and popularity over the next decades, a fatal snowplow accident attributed to thinned lake ice,put an end to the races in 1974. It wasn’t until the late 2010s that Ferdi got the itch to revive it.

“In 2017 (or) 2018 I found pictures of (the race), and I found out my dad owned a car that was used in the race(s). I actually still have the spiked tires from it,” Porsche said. “I asked (my dad), and he told me all about it.”

Porsche brought the event back to Zell am See in 2019 with the help of his college friend Vinzenz Greger, former F1 driver Hans-Joachim Stuck, and ex-Porsche factory driver Richard Lietz.

“We always knew there was a market in the U.S.,” Porsche said. “I’ve been to the U.S., and I always love the car culture here and how crazy people here are about cars.”

FAT Ice Race first came to the U.S. in 2024 in Aspen, Colorado. Porsche said hosting the Aspen event made him realize the importance of having a local partners to help secure permits, insurance and lodging.

Byrne recalled reaching out to Ferdi Porsche to suggest holding the FAT Ice Race in Big Sky a few years ago. After some logistical planning, the two decided to build the ice track in Moonlight Basin.

“It took two months to build the course, and three to get the ice and snow walls up,” said Byrne. Due to the unusually dry season, Byrne said, “a couple million gallons of snow” were made to prepare for the event.

Both Porsche and Byrne have expressed that the primary goals of the inaugural Big Sky event are to generate buzz, work out the event’s kinks, and celebrate car culture.

“Motorsports are always about fun and people making it their own [and] embracing the culture,” Porsche. “I want to open it up to a younger audience and help shift it from a spectator sport to something people can actually do.”

In the future, Porsche said he hopes to expand the capacity of the event to include more drivers, vehicles, and spectators.

“It takes a village,” Porsche said. “We’re starting small, but we’re excited to grow. I like it here. ”{/div}{/div}{/div}