[s-cars] S on Ice

Mon Feb 10 18:55:22 EST 2003

How much dos it cost to put a car on a boat from France to Canada, I will love to try that one !!!!

Regards,
Frederic

-----Original Message-----
From: Vincent Fregeac [mailto:vfregeac at sympatico.ca]
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 11:47 AM
To: 'Joseph Pizzimenti'; 's-cars'
Subject: RE : [s-cars] S on Ice

Joe,

Do you really think I didn't try this after the several thousand posts we have every month about Torsen vs whatever! It does work, right, but it takes a few hundreds feet to swap the ends of the car and it was really touchy to control as the front end was coming back to it's original position as soon as I left the gas pedal to stop the drift. The ice on the lake was nothing compared to an icy parking lot - where I've spent some time too, but not much with the S6. You should definitely try a frozen lake. It's a new definition of "no traction"!

Vincent.

-----Message d'origine-----
De : Joseph Pizzimenti [mailto:pizzoman at yahoo.com]
Envoyé : 10 février 2003 01:44
À : Vincent Fregeac; 's-cars'
Objet : Re: [s-cars] S on Ice

Don Vincenzo,
Throttle steer, my friend, throttle steer.
When you have no traction, turning the wheel won't
help you, but quattro will.  Something I've found
works pretty well on my self-teaching in icy parking
lots is when you're drifting, torque'll help you steer
more than the wheel, which is pretty much just there
for your hands to do something.  They get bored
otherwise.  Again, I'm not a steamboater or an
instructor, but I have a helluvatime in unpaved
parking lots.  :-)

Joe
--- Vincent Fregeac <vfregeac at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> 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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