Dancing on Ice, the Audi way
Fleetfoot* in Sweden
CARNSTYLE
Impossible looking moves, deadly spins and enviable drifts... We did that and much more at Audi’s rigorous training facility in Arjeplog, Sweden. Every driver thinks that he is perfect behind wheels. Be whatsoever the situation, he can pull off a fast one and slither out without much ado. But then reality dawns, your dream breaks and you figure that neither are you Jason Stratham from Transporter nor playing the role of 007. Then one fine day you get a call from Audi to take part in their Ice Driving experience and you say... Hell yeah, why not? And that’s it, after that your driving is never the same.
After flying for almost 15 hours from Delhi and then another hour and a half on a bus you reach Arjeplog. It’s almost as if you have reached the end of the world. Covered in ice for almost eight months a year there is nothing much to see, apart from landscapes covered in ice dotted with some trees, more ice and then some more! And in this district over one of their numerous frozen lakes was our test track. We had six tracks which were bordered with powdered snow to cushion the numerous crashes and false take-offs we were about to make. To make sure that by the end of the training period we were able to pull off some admirable sideways movement, that is drift the car, we had former European rally Champ and current Audi driving experience expert Jochi Kleint as a mentor.
For two whole days all that we did was cruise up to 60 kph, step off the gas, take a sharp left or right, according to the course of the track and let the car do its sliding thing on ice and then throttle away to let the car’s rear end drift forward and then counter-steer to control the sideways movement. And what were our rides... Quattro powered A4 2.0 TSFIs! What was really amazing about Jochi was that he didn’t care what we did with the cars. All that he wanted was us to learn, understand and then put into action the full potential and possibilities of a Quattro system. Agreed that you can drift on rear wheel drive cars, but the feel of moving these A4s sideways was entirely different. On that lake bed we had five A4s powering off on ice, going off the tarmac into the snow, calling for the tractor to pull us out and then once again resuming our maniacal activity. But at the end of the day we all were a happy bunch of people who had figured out a driving technique which is nothing less than art. Of course we were nowhere close to Jochi or his student Dennis who could complete the longest tracks, a 6km one, sideways, steering with one hand and the other holding the walkie-talkie while shouting instructions for another driver... And all this without crashing! At the end of the second day we had another surprise waiting for us... A snowmobile ride with the experts from Polaris! Up we went once again, over mountains, frozen lakes and in the wilderness to end up at a hunting lodge where a steaming meal of reindeer meat, moose meat and bear meat was waiting for us. Surely a scrumptious end to a fitting ride! A ride can’t get better than this, we feel at CARNSTYLE.
(*The writer is a leading Indian journalist working with an automotive publication in the country. He has written this article in his pseudo name ‘Fleetfoot’ after having visited Sweden recently on an invitation from Audi))
