Planai-Classic

Schladming is a ski town first. The Styrian resort in the upper Ennstal is best known for the floodlit World Cup night slalom on the Planai, and for most of the winter the mountain belongs to skiers. For three days in January the access road up the Planai is given over to something older and stranger.

The Planai-Classic runs from 14 to 16 January 2027, the winter sibling of the summer Ennstal Classic and run by the same Gröbming team. The field is capped at fifty cars, all built before 1977, and the rules are deliberately spartan: no all-wheel drive, no electronic aids, just rear- and front-drive classics on snow and ice. Entries for the 1973 to 1976 cars go through a selection that favours genuine competition history.

The route works through the valley across three days, with tests on the Niederöblarn airfield, a night challenge on the Gröbming trotting track and a climb of the tolled Dachstein road. The set piece is the Planai itself, a timed run up the prepared ski road to the Planaihof, with spectators sent up the gondola to watch from the mid-station. It is a hard, cold, unglamorous event, closer to proper winter motorsport than to a scenic tour, which is exactly why the fifty places fill quickly and the same crews keep coming back.

In January the high passes are shut, but the valley still gives you something. The tolled Dachstein road climbs toward the glacier from Ramsau and is kept open through winter, and the Radstädter Tauern over toward Salzburg stays plowed when the rest of the range closes. An hour east, the Red Bull Ring at Spielberg sits quiet under snow, worth the detour for anyone who wants to see where Austria keeps its Grand Prix.