[s-cars] S on Ice

[Vincent Fregeac]

Hi all,

Last week, browsing the 20V list for my old 90Q20V, I read a message
from Alexander about the SCCV (Sport Car Club of Vermont, www.sccv.org,
where the "Stradali" come from). SCCV organizes Ice Trials every Sunday,
open to everybody: just bring a helmet and 15$ and have fun. A quick
check at maps.yahoo told me the next Ice Trials was only an hour and
half from Montreal, at Mallets Bay. So, on Saturday evening, I packed
two pairs of gloves, a turtle neck, a bonnet and a few other winter
piece of equipment in my byke helmet and here we go. I was not sure the
bike helmet will do but I've been told there's plenty of nice people in
SCCV who'll be happy to share a helmet.

The first part of the day was really bad. 7 am on a Sunday morning is
not really my cup of tea. Anyway, after a quick shower, my two eyes were
looking in the same direction and 45 min. and two cup of coffee later, I
was ready to go. The trip from Montreal to Colchester is really nice
hopefully, as my two tickets since the beginning of the year was telling
me to follow safely the traffic. Yahoo always tell the truth, or almost,
and one hour and half later my Pirellis was touching the ice: I had a
few seconds of pure joy, feeling the four wheels spinning under the car
with a relative efficiency, until I turned the steering wheel. Don’t
believe the sale reps when he says his snow tires are very good on snow
and very good on ice. That's pure bullshit! On a frozen lake, with real
ice, the steering wheel is useless above 15mph! I was one hour in
advance so I had the opportunity to find a relatively smooth place to
practice a bit and kept some time to feed my stomach. It was the first
time I put the S6 on ice and half an hour of practice was not enough. I
understood it when they laid the double-eight track and I made the first
lap. On a straight line, ABS and EDL does a pretty good job to transfer
a little bit of power and braking to the ice but in the turn, nothing.
The S6 was either keeping an almost straight line or dancing an
uncontrolled waltz. In the second lap I found an almost controllable way
to turn at a higher speed than 3 mph. I put the brake pedal to the metal
a hundred foot before the cone and just before passing the cone, I
turned the wheel a bit for one second. With the ice prepared by the
studded tires, the ABS was doing a really good job to slow down the car
and initiate the turn. The only problem then was to stop the drift when
the car had turned around the cone. The second run was much better with
only one uncontrolled drift on two laps, instead of four. So I though I
had mastered the trick and tried to do it a bit faster on the third and
fourth runs. Not a good idea. I never managed to beat the 2nd run and
even managed to make a run slower than the first one.

The other pleasure of the day was to see the cars with special studded
tires. These guys had traction! And traction was everything. The best
time was made by a rabbit pickup with front studded tires only: FWD, no
weight and no stud on the rear. I never though this combination would be
controllable on ice: it was! Driver experience made also a great
difference. In the non-studded car, I think the best time came from a
Neon, beating a S6, a 90 Quattro and a Impreza RS.

OK, I'll stop here. This post is already too long but this day was
really too short. I can't wait until next Sunday if my S6 doesn't find
another way to leak, like it does yesterday. If some of you are not too
far from Colchester, VT and the surrounding, what about be beaten by a
rabbit pick-up. All the info is on www.sccv.org. I hope I'll see some
other urS next Sunday.


Vincent.

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