Ultrace 2024 - Event Coverage pt.1

Now, I’ve never been to Ultrace before but as I absolutely love the Next Level International events the massive Polish automotive show has naturally been on my to-visit list. Although this year it didn’t really fit my schedule and I initially passed on the opportunity to go, but one week before the event I caught a big case of fomo and booked a last minute flight and hotel and the rest is now history.

The Ultrace event has been going on for over a decade and has become a massive staple in the European car scene. What makes this event stand out from the rest is the very high standard of the builds that are displayed, the incorporation of a whole stand-alone drifting event hosted by Next Level Drift and the relevant partners and brands that you can find around the stadium such as Hot Wheels, Rotiform, Air Lift Suspension, Peaches Universe and many more.

The luxury identity of the Ultrace brand of course stems from the high quality cars that are on display, but mostly from the incredible presence of the amazing classic heroes, old school race cars and homage builds that are displayed throughout the compound.

This year that extra luxury vibe was brought by the likes of The Hofmeister who showcased a fleet of Fina racing cars consisting of a BMW E36 GTR, E30 M3 and a legendary McLaren F1 GTR Longtail. Only 10 F1 GTR Longtails were built for the 1997 FIA GT Championship and most track cars have since been converted to roadcars.

Rennmeister brought a couple of Jagermsieter inspired track toys. A Group C Porsche 962, an Alfa Romeo 155, a BMW E30 M3 and a DTM Opel Astra, all beautiful cars sporting the classic bright orange Jagermeister livery.

Porsche brought out some very recognizable cars from their own fleet like the Martini liveried 911 rally car ran by Porsche in 1978 in the East African Safari Rally. Other than the bigger tyres, raised suspension and the safety mods like the roll cage, bull bar and skid plates the car was a completely standard 911 and it managed to finish in second place in the rally after hitting a rock damaging the suspension just hours before the finish line.

Next to it stood a beautiful, white on white 959 and an eye catching 964 Carrera in Ruby Red, a color that has gained popularity recently with the color being added as an option for the 2023 and 2024 lineup of Porsches.

Poland has proven to be the home of many high quality car-builds, but with over a thousand spots to fill in the show cars from all over Europe, and in some cases even the world, help out.

Some of the cars that took the longest trips to get to the Wrocław Stadium were the Ken Nomura ER34 Skyline, Liberty Walk Countach and Peaches Universe extensively modified Hyundai Pony, traveling from Japan and South Korea respectively.

The replica of ”Nomuken”’s ER34 was for sure a personal highlight of the event. Not because it is the most unique, creative or extreme build but because it gave me a taste of what it was like being around in the golden era of D1 drifting. Even if you manage to find an old D1 survivor, such as those owned by @jdmsupreme they will have battle scars, as they should. But this Skyline shows exactly what the Blitz tuned ER34 would’ve looked like being premiered at the first round at Ebisu during the 2002 D1GP.

Speaking of drifting, Next Level Drift hosts a drifting event almost the same size as their International event down at the parking lot, which furthers how massive Ultrace actually is.

Drivers from USA, Great Britain, Poland, and Finland amongst other places travel long distances to drive at the short but exciting course built on the parking lot of Wrocław Stadium.

I might be a bit biased but one of my favorite cars down at the track is @customcarshoppl’s orange S13. The car is fitted with a Origin Lab Streamline bodykit, Type X Tail lights and Work Meisters and really shows that exterior-wise less is more when executed with good parts. The newly mounted 326 inspired livery truly is the cherry on top.

The pit also showcased some show worthy and fairly intricate builds such as this Volkswagen Taro (Toyota Hilux) and Nightride’s 1UZ-swapped R32 Skyline.

Sultan has a habit of bringing some crazy builds all the way from Dubai to the event. Last year be brought a LS-swapped Porsche 997, this year he went for a similar build but with more seats. A Porsche Panamera with a, you guessed it, LS engine swap, 20” VS-KF and bucket seats all around. Unfortunately the car suffered some failures only a few laps in and the car was parked in the pits for the remainder of the weekend.

Arios Suzuki (@arios_suzuki) usually drifts more unusual chassis like the McLaren MP4-12C or Ferrari 360 that he has back home in Japan but Poland he got to borrow Nightride’s V8 MX5.

The translation on the new, soon to be released, “Street Style” decals are confirmed to be correct by the man himself. Thank you Suzuki-San!

The temporary course starts of with a long straight which gives the drivers great speed coming into the first righthand corner. The rest of the course is fairly narrow with little to no room for error before you hit either the tyres or the barriers.

And the track unfortunately claimed a few victims. It’s never fun seeing someone crash their car, but seeing this unique and fresh build in the wall was truly painful.

Another car that unfortunately faced the same fait was Al’s stunning AE86 Corolla. While this too was a painful sight seeing Al laugh it of eased the pain a bit.

The BMW E36 and E46 are for sure one of the chassis used most for drifting in Poland, but the drifting featured a good variety of makes and models.

The full day of blazing heat had for sure taken it’s toll on my energy, but with the sun slowly going down you could do nothing but enjoy the last hour of the Saturday event in amazement.

The power-level of the cars varied greatly but none was less entertaining than the other. From NA E36 Compacts to 1100hp 2JZ Coupés, all made sure to put up a good show for the thousands of spectators up on the next floor.

The clock struck 20 and with that the first day of the event was officially over.

As I said in the beginning of the post I’ve always heard and seen a lot of great things regarding this event, but experiencing it first hand is really something else. The Next Level Drift event alone would give you a weekend to remember, and add a very high level of quality 1000+ car show on top of that and you get something that boarders on overwhelming. It doesn’t matter where you’re at, watching the drifting, strolling through the show or even just walking through the spectator parking area, there will always be something that catches your eyes.

As people started exiting the stadium I took one last stroll through the event before heading home for the night (but not before visiting the Night Experience club of course) to charge both my own a the cameras batteries, getting ready for another day of creating long lived memories.

(With so much to shoot you easily mis at a ton of cool cars, and a car that I wish I’d taken a closer look at was the TRD 3000GT kitted Supra MK4 from 2 Fast 2 Furious. With the love for a few aspects of the early 2000’s tuner scene coming back this was a very cool car to experience first hand.)

Thank you so much for scrolling all the way through, wether you read it all or just scrolled through the photos I hoped that you enjoyed this first part of the Ultrace event coverage. Part 2 will be up shortly followed by two more posts showing more of the drifting and more from the show as it just isn’t possible to compress everything the event had to offer into just 2 parts.

//Robin