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Thriller ice
4 years ago
A breathtaking setting is the frosted icing on the cake
For a while the studious comparison between a famous circuit such as Silverstone and its pan-flat facsimile within the Arctic Circle was the thin veil of import thrown over some giggles. And occasionally you could go all the way to the 66th parallel (north) in order to report on a new winter tyre…that no one (in the UK at least) would bother fitting the following year.
I’ve managed a couple of caveats and camouflage trips in the past (Audi RS3 and Aston Martin Vantage) but the two most memorable expeditions to automotive winter wonderlands fell into none of the aforementioned categories. Yet somehow I got away with them.
The first took place not in the frozen north, but instead in the glamorous, fur-trimmed, Aperol-fuelled Italian resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo. Nestled deep in the Dolomites, it required one of the most hair-raising coach journeys I’ve ever experienced. It was dark and the headlights were illuminating nothing other than the huge feathery snowflakes drifting and swirling all around. Not that this lack of visibility seemed to bother the driver. It was as though Miki Biasion had fallen on hard times and decided to translate his skills with an Integrale to a packed Iveco. For the final hour it seemed as though the whole bus held its collective breath as the switchbacks were dispatched.
"After a while, tentative blips become longer barks that rise and fall in waves of precisely applied throttle. You find you have time. The weight is your friend"
But the mild terror was well worth it, because I was heading to Ferrari’s Corso Pilota on Ice and an hour later my feet were eliciting the crisp-packet crunch of compacting snow as I walked towards a fleet of F430s with manual gearboxes, rose-jointed suspension and studded tyres. Each one was painted in classic Rosso Corsa, giving the whole floodlit scene the colour palette of a Santa Claus convention.
And it certainly felt like Christmas had come early in terms of the driving experience. Huge snow banks the size of houses formed corridors to slip and slide between, their Daz white brightness exacerbated by the contrast with the night sky above. Initially it was a bit like running around in a sci-fi maze, with every turn looking very much like the last, but once you’d got your bearings the whole thing was bewitching. The proximity of the big white walls contained and amplified the sound of a flat-plane crank V8, but also isolated and smothered it slightly in that way snow does. Mix in the clack-clack sound of the gated manual inside the car and it was even better. As settings go, it was almost dreamlike.
The only downside was that the fresh snow hampered the outright bite of the studded tyres. Scandi flicks and oversteer kicks were still there in abundance, but in a slightly more slo-mo fashion than expected. However, there was no such problem on the other jaunt that sticks in my mind…
"You start on the equivalent of milk teeth; little button studs that barely bite the surface. Sure, they find much more purchase than the bare gums of an ordinary winter tyre, but nonetheless, the level of grip is low. This lets you, no, it forces you to concentrate, possibly more intensely than any time since that first lesson with Ls on the bonnet and boot"
It also involved a convoluted journey to get there, but only because we were heading straight to Sweden from filming the as-yet-unveiled 991.2 GT3 in a studio in Stuttgart. There were delayed flights and missed connections and quite a bit of running through airports before we eventually ended up in Norway via Denmark with a Toyota RAV4 hire car to transport us across the border to Åre (pronounced, I think, or-ay).
But once again, it was all worth it when, the following morning, I found myself under a Riviera blue sky on a Carrara White frozen lake looking at a phalanx of old Porsches, rally-prepped by Tuthill. Even in my insanely privileged life, the Below Zero ice driving course is one of the very best things I have done. Ever.
You start on the equivalent of milk teeth; little button studs that barely bite the surface. Sure, they find much more purchase than the bare gums of an ordinary winter tyre, but nonetheless, the level of grip is low. This lets you, no, it forces you to concentrate, possibly more intensely than any time since that first lesson with Ls on the bonnet and boot. Suddenly all the stories that you’ve heard of old 911s seem to solidify.
You learn that patience is key, particularly in the transition. Yet aggression is also rewarded if used wisely. And you slide. Mostly too much or too little at first. Pendulums become pirouettes and cloud after glittery cloud of fine, dry snow is sent sparkling into the crystal clear air as you come to a halt. Try again. A stalled flat-six reignited. And again. There’s frustration but also progress and the learning is fun as you catch glimpses of what might be. Then, after a while, tentative blips become longer barks that rise and fall in waves of precisely applied throttle. You find you have time. The weight is your friend.
Bring on the incisors – 7mm spikes sunk into the tread blocks. The principles are the same – the big transfers, the little shifts, the braking, right foot, left foot – but now there is grip and with it speed. The difference is stark. I can only imagine this is what having gravity give definition to your movements upon returning from space is like.
And so you control a ton of characterful metal gracefully across a postcard landscape. Apologies if it’s not useful to read about. But trust me, it’s lots of fun if you ever get the chance to do it.
With thanks to Evo magazine
