Best tips for different types of winter race driving

Professional rally drivers have perfected the art of sliding sideways around corners on a race tracks made of packed snow and ice at the Center for Driving Sciences in Steamboat Springs.  Sign up as a student in the Bridgestone Winter Driving School and the professional rally drivers turned instructors will quickly teach you to perform all manner of car control tricks, both safety and performance oriented. I had the distinct pleasure of attending the "5th Gear" two day performance school in early February. 

Hardware

Students are rotated between front wheel drive Toyota Camrys and Toyota Forerunners that can be shifted between rear wheel and all wheel drive.  This may not sound like exciting machinery, but it really was ideal for learning.  For example, the giant size of the Forerunner meant that weight transfer shifts front to back and left to right were slow, deliberate and easy to feel - all pluses when you are trying to learn to make two feet and two hands cause and control skids. All of the vehicles are outfitted with Bridgestone Blizzak winter tires which were of critical importance.  Jokes circulated about all season tires really being "no season" tires since no rubber compound really has excellent performance on both dry pavement and snow pack.  Out on the icy race tracks we were amazed at the Blizzak's ability to find grip.

Drill Sergeants

Every moment of both days, save for welcome breaks in the hut for warm soup at lunch, was spent learning new techniques and practicing them at length in the various vehicles.  Some favorites for me were the Scandinavian flick, reverse 180s and left foot braking exercises.  You have seen these crazy stunts in movies - to make a left hand turn, approach on the wrong side of the street, yank the wheel right, then yank it back left to generate a massive over steer and glide through the corner sideways with the rear tires lit up - nice.  You too can be stunt driver under the tutelage of the instructors.  Left foot braking, in stark comparison, was an exercise in subtleties.  We rotated between front, rear and all wheel drive and experimented with two foot slide control around a giant icy sloped skid pad.  Controlling which tires have grip via weight transfer, steering angle, power to the driven wheels and braking to slow the non-driven wheels is a complex science.

Ice Track Lapping

Without a doubt the most fun was our time spent lapping on the two race tracks.  The courses are located on rolling farm land where early snow is tamped down and then sprayed with water to create a solid ice bed.  Additional snowfall is groomed on top and the result is a race course made of snow and ice with great elevation changes and a good variety of corner types.  Lapping on the tracks was wicked fun a great test of the new car control skills we had just learned.  Getting a maximum speed joy ride from a pro rally driver around the track certainly was the highlight of the weekend.

The #1 Key to Winter Driving

If I had to pick the single most important thing I learned at the Winter Driving School it would have to be vision.  Almost invariably your brain learns very quickly how to communicate instructions to your hands and feet to control a sliding car.  However, your brain uses your eyes to decide where the controlled skid should end up.  A driver absolutely must be looking where they want the car to go at all times - and not at the scary snowbank or stuck car you might be sliding toward.  Keep in mind that when you are sliding in the snow, looking where you want to go might be out the passenger side window!  Eyes up!