WATCH: Mind-blowing Horice GP still gives us heart-stopping thrills and chills
There are motorcycle road racing events and then there is the Horice GP in the Czech Republic which continues to leave our hearts in our mouths
We’ll say this straight up, anyone who out there who partakes in any motorcycle road race deserves immense credit for bravery alone… but if you have ever competed in the Horice GP then we take all the hats off to you especially.
All racers - amateur, short circuit, road race, off-road et al - have to be a bit foolhardy to put bravery above logic when it comes to opening the throttle and pegging it at high-speed inches from the ground, but there are just some events that watching alone give us a pupil-widening shot of adrenaline.
We’ve featured the Horice GP on these pages before, not least this weekend as part of our 8 of the Most Extreme Motorcycle Races on the Planet feature, but we thought it deserved highlighting on its own again for the sheer immensity (absurdity) of it.
Of course, road races are by very their definition at the extremities of a risk assessment analysis but even by those questionable standards the Horice GP pushes it to the limit.
A little geography lesson first: The pleasantly titled town of Horice is located in the Jicin district of the Czech Republic to the north of the country. It has 8,500 inhabitants and is best known for Hořické trubičky, a confectionary that looks a bit lie cigarettes…
More relevantly, it is also home to the Horice GP, a round of the International Road Racing Championship.
The event features a circuit of just over 5km that traverses the town itself and some dense forestry, featuring a blend of fast straight, sweeping bends, banked curves and cheeky chicanes.
If that sounds a little dry then we implore you watch this POV on board from Murtanio, a professional road racer with a penchant for filming his exploits across Europe, which has turned him into something of a social media influencer and YouTube star.
His lap of the Horice GP on a Yamaha R6 is a centrepiece though having generated 4.6M views at the time of watching… and we assure you it is worth taking a few minutes out of your day to watch this.
Far be it from us to say the circuit pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable for a race and we have no doubt the IRCC have completed due diligence, but this blows our mind every time we watch it.
In terms of street furniture it is a royal flush from the exposed tree trunks of a forest-lined route, a smattering of fans leaning over barriers, solid looking kerbs and challenging undulating roads that remind us over the Nordschleife minus the controlled conditions. There is even a handy Lidl as you whizz by…
You’ve seen the on-board, now check out what it looks like from a spectator perspective. We love the Isle of Man TT but this is something else…
