Dan in the Mustang, throwing a bit of opposite lock. Photo by Kurt Ernst.
On the power into the first corner, my Volkswagen GTI starts to drift wide, the Dunlop winter tires fighting for grip on the pavement’s mix of ice and snow. Coming off throttle fails to rotate the back end, so I grab the handbrake instead, then quickly countersteer to catch the purposely induced slide. Pointed in the right direction, I gently roll into the throttle trying to find grip, then prepare to set up for the next corner, a slightly uphill right-hander with a slippery powder base at the entry.
Kurt in the GTI, doing his best Stig Blomqvist impersonation. Photo by J. Daniel Beaudry.
As one whose race experience was limited to spectating to this point, Managing Editor Dan Beaudry had a slightly different experience in his 420-hp 2014 Mustang GT. “The first thing I noticed,” Dan explains, “is how quickly you can build up a sweat. Having never done any snowcrossing—or any racing at all, for that matter—I was spinning the wheel from lock to lock and shifting between second and third gears multiple times throughout the course until one of the instructors told me that it had been built with the intention that you put it in second and leave it there. You drive with the throttle, and occasionally the e-brake.”
“I also quickly learned that I didn’t know everything about my Mustang. No stranger to doing stoplight burnouts, I could turn off my traction control, but I hadn’t the foggiest idea of how to switch AdvanceTrac to sport mode (in neutral with the brake on, cycle through the display screens and then hold down the Traction Control button in front of the shifter for five seconds). As with all nannies—both the flesh-and-blood and the electronic kinds—these are designed to keep you safe under normal circumstances, but need to be switched off if you’re going to make it around a snowcross course with any semblance of grace or speed.”
On public roads, with a dangerous mix of other drivers, curbs, trees and guardrails, such antics would be foolhardy, if not suicidal. At Lime Rock Park, on the track’s groomed winter autocross course, they’re encouraged, and even backed up with professional instruction for those seeking to upgrade their confidence behind the wheel during winter months. Want to be safer driving a Honda Civic to work? The course will help, blending ample amounts of instruction and practice. Want to perfect your Scandinavian flick and drift your WRX STI through every corner? The instructors can help you there, too.
Two laps in the GTI.
Calling it a “snowcross series” is a bit of a misnomer, since no one held a clipboard and a stopwatch to record lap times. Instead, the new-for-2015 events are aimed more at bringing people out to learn (or play) in the snow, making them better drivers and potential candidates for the track’s warm-weather autocross series (which does indeed feature timed laps).
Despite the frigid 10-degree temperatures and biting wind—at one point, the Miata actually found itself frozen in place in the short time between rounds—about a dozen cars showed up to our session, with drivers that ran the gamut from Millennials to card-carrying members of AARP. Which meant that everyone was there for a slightly different purpose, all centered on gaining confidence behind the wheel on icy and snow-packed roads.
With the right tires, even Miatas go well in snow. Photo by Kurt Ernst.
The day began with a safety briefing from the instructors, which included such helpful advice as, “If your car has bumper-mounted tow hooks, you might want to uncover them now. You’ll need them at some point today.” Put in a kinder, gentler, way, the expectation was that every driver would, during the course of the event, require assistance from one of the track’s two tow trucks, perpetually at the ready throughout each session. “Knowing that the tow trucks were there,” says Dan, “made you feel like you could push your boundaries just a little further each time around the track until you either found your own limits or the limits of your car.”
The ever-present tow trucks were deployed a few times each session. Photo by Kurt Ernst.
On the plus side, snow is soft, and the track’s dedicated autocross course is devoid of any solid objects to hit. Going off produces bruised egos, but little in the way of vehicular damage. As Dan and I found out, the predictions of the instructors weren’t far off the mark. “In, probably 15 laps, I spun the Mustang out on the ice on Turn 3 twice,” Dan says, “and needed to be towed out of the soft snow at the bottom of the hill on Turn 6 once. Some people needed a tow every other lap. But that was okay. No harm done; you just tried it a little differently the next time around.”
Lime Rock Snowcross conditions on January 31, 2015. Illustration by Zach Higgins.
As explained in an earlier article on the track’s snowcross series, the idea came about as a way to use the autocross course year-round. With the help of the Lime Rock Driver’s Club, the track acquired the snow-making and grooming equipment used by ski resorts, which requires only cold weather to produce a suitable base of icy powder. To ensure the track is as smooth as possible, it’s groomed before each session with a tool that looks like a bit of agricultural equipment. As Lime Rock’s Jeff Grossbard explained, the plow churns up the surface to reduce ice buildup and make for a more uniform base.
That’s not to say it’s a completely smooth surface, and picking the best way around the track requires dodging ice potholes and coping with ever-varying amounts of grip. The rules of choosing a line, critical for respectable lap times in warm-weather autocross, simply do not apply here.
Tom Nelson doing a pirouette in his X5; no tow truck was needed here. Photo by Kurt Ernst.
Man-made snow is only produced on the lower autocross track, which leaves the upper section available on the whim of Mother Nature (and track instructors). Thanks to this winter’s snowfall and cold, it was open for business and covered with a thick sheen of glare ice for our Saturday session. Only chains or studded snow tires work well on such a surface, and neither is permitted at Lime Rock. In other words, it pays to have very good winter tires mounted when signing up for a session.
“Incidentally,” Dan explains, “I learned that the only way to maintain any speed on the icy corners was to tuck your front tire into the snow on the inside of the turn early on and, depending on your speed, either feather the throttle or the e-brake as your rear slides around.” Optimal techniques varied, depending on whether the car was rear-drive, front-drive, or all-wheel drive.
No sports car? No problem; here, David Maffucci catches a slide in his Nissan Armada. Photo by Kurt Ernst.
The ever-changing track surface added an element of complexity, and participants got to practice cornering on everything from deep powder through hardpacked snow and polished ice (covered with a thin layer of friction-reducing snow, thanks to Saturday’s gusty wind).
Conditions were, in fact, ideal, and ample track time (interspersed with a brief classroom discussion on driving dynamics and the effects of weight transfer when accelerating, cornering and stopping) made the event’s cost a bargain. Sure, sliding a car around an empty snow-covered parking lot is free, but that comes without instruction (and with the risk of hitting something buried beneath the snow, or getting ticketed by law enforcement).
Good winter tires are essential. Photo by Kurt Ernst
Late in the day, Dan and I traded keys, and he found my front-drive GTI much easier to wheel than I found his rear-drive Mustang GT. Though shod with the same model of Dunlop winter tires I use, the Mustang proved a handful to drive at speed around the course, and I’ll admit to twice burying the back end in the snow (though both incidents required just a set of hands to extract me, not a tow hook). I’d forgotten just how big the fifth-generation Mustang is, and dancing one on ice requires more than just a few laps of familiarization.
Afterward, it’s critical to dig the snow out of your wheels. Ask us how we know. Photo by J. Daniel Beaudry.
If you have the opportunity to participate in a winter driving course such as this, do it. It doesn’t matter what you drive (as Saturday’s vehicles included a Honda Civic, a Hyundai Elantra, a first-generation Mazda Miata and a full-size Nissan Armada SUV), what matters is that you’ll be safer behind the wheel when the white stuff falls.
Lime Rock’s winter autocross days are scheduled to run through Saturday, March 7. For more information, visit LimeRock.com.