Hello,

 

Over the last few years, I've organized an ice driving weekend for friends and forum acquaintances. We've hit a good groove with the hotel we've been using, and they'd like to expand the track use. So this year, I'd like to offer the opportunity through Briskoda.

The outline is really simple: You bring your car, you drive the ice. We don't do times, we don't race. The aim is to get better at winter driving. 

 

If it's your wife, husband, girlfriend or boyfriend who needs to get better - fine, bring them, too. We'll be based in a hotel just outside Tervo, which is around an hour north of Suonenjoki, in central-ish Finland. 

 

I wrote a piece after last winter's escapades, originally intended for a magazine. Because it describes the event quite nicely, I've added it here.

 

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It's a not-completely-normal Saturday morning. Not quite 7:15 am, it's still pitch black. Surprisingly, it's only just below zero. There's a good foot and a half of snow on the ground and if I listen carefully, I can hear the rapids. We are at just north of 63 degrees of latitude, and a couple of hundred metres away is a serious current spiced with rocks and salmon. From here, it's around 300 miles and six hours drive to the arctic circle and four miles back to the village store and petrol station. In Autumn, when there's no snow, the lights are off and it's cloudy, you cannot see your hand in front of your face. Light pollution is essentially non-existent when there are less than 12 people per square mile.

 

Welcome to the north.

 

We're not even that far north, either; one group member drove several hours south yesterday to get here. He commented on seeing less than ten cars driving the other way over several hours.

 

Welcome to the north.

 

Yesterday, most of the group drove up from Helsinki via Lahti and the 9 road. In five driving hours, there was less than 90 minutes of motorway.

 

Welcome to the north.

 

Once, my guests would ask me how far away places were. "2 hours" was a possible answer, and they would be confused. Distance becomes irrelevant when the speed limit is 80km/h and the roads are generally clear.

 

Welcome to the north.

 

I head over past the main building, crunching the fresh powder, towards the annex where most of the guys are and where we went for sauna last night. I greet one of them, who is working on securing his 911 back on its trailer. He swapped to true winter tyres last night and the car is road-legal, but considering the four months it will probably sit still after this event, he considered it prudent to not subject it to the road conditions and incredible amounts of salt that accompany them. The jockey wheel of the trailer was jerked loose multiple times on the way up by the unusually bad ice bumps.
A short while later, we are sitting at breakfast, all twenty or so of us - a motley crew of various backgrounds, nationalities, cars and ages. Coffee is consumed, food eaten, the brief driver briefing is given and listened to and then we're off on our annual adventure.

 

To drive the ice.

 

I moved up here in mid 2004, and a couple of winters later was invited by a Subaru-driving colleague to check out an Icetrack day being held in a farmer's field not too far from me. I thoroughly enjoyed the photographic experience and returned the next week to the track at an airfield even closer to home. There I started to really learn how to photograph motor sports. I also got pummeled with flying snow, iced up my tripods. Began to learn not to step on fresh snow because you have no idea just how deep it is, and not to stand on the outside of corners. Fast forward a couple of years and I started my own event. This past winter was iteration 9.

The intention always was to encourage safe driving. With understanding comes the possibility of control and so we started with elk tests, slaloms, and braking. The group has, from the start, been mainly Audis, with the initial invitation going through the German A2 club, but colleagues have been around since day one.

The event is generally the only opportunity most of my visitors will get to seriously play with their cars. They may have 300 bhp in a V6-swapped TT, but having a space in which to exercise it without any street furniture, people or significant snowbanks in the way is rare in the extreme. This is why some of them return year on year. I've seen locals misuse empty carparks but the potential for issues is massive. At track, it's reasonably controlled and everyone is up for learning, meaning aggression is minimal and pauses very much necessary. Everyone's also driving in the same direction at the same time and we work to make sure certain areas aren't too fast, because unpleasant surprises can happen when driving wet ice, even if you're reasonably used to it.
This year, we had several A2s, a 911, Impreza, 4motion Leon, an A8 and a TT with, amongst others. The big barge is running a 4.2 V8 and its driver commented on the usefulness of the donut ring in truly understanding the realities of sliding sideways. The efforts paid off, because the footage shows magnificent slides being held and kept for an entire corner. Does this deserve respect and admiration? Absolutely. The 3.6 transplanted TT was wearing serious spikes, which also helped it be faster than the A8 round the track, but even that was eclipsed by an old A4. Turns out Trackmeister has a set of old rally tyres and during lunch bolted them on to his 99 A4 TDI quattro. Said quattro, when driven with aplomb, was seriously quick, even more so than the TT. I think we'll be seeing more spikes next time...we also saw some great introductions to ice driving for teenagers, with more than one successfully sliding around the donut ring.
One of the highlights of the weekend, though, has to be the iceracing "911" which also turned up and blasted round an empty track several times. The noise and speed were immense, as was the sheer number of spikes on the seemingly 155-section tyres. The track was beautifully roughed-up afterwards, too.

 

I also tested my own Octavia out, though the smell after two laps indicated I needed to turn ASR off. The second set of laps were a little better and far more fun, but still - I set this up, and enjoy the sight of cars sliding endlessly, occasionally landing in the snowbank so far they have to be pulled out.

 

I'll be looking to walk and drive on water one more time this winter.

 

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Some Track Details
The hotel will be building its own track complex this winter. I know of at least three track setups we could use, and the question will be resolved mainly according to weather. One is in the woods across the road from the hotel, another is on a lake a half-hour drive away and the third is around the corner from the hotel, on another lake. The complex will include a donut ring where possible, i.e. on all the lakes. Which tracks are available to us depends on the weather. Lake tracks demand at least 10cm of ice early in the season to get the snow off so the ice can thicken correctly; land-based tracks are more interesting in terms of height differences but also more challenging.

 

Timings

The standard timing for one of these trips involves driving through to the ferry terminal at Lübeck / Travemünde for midnight on a Wednesday. The ferry casts off at 0300 Thursday and arrives in Helsinki at 0900 local time Friday. From there it's a convoy through the frozen snow up to Tervo. Saturday and Sunday are track time, with Monday being a day for other activities, such as skidoo, husky sledding, snowshoeing.... Tuesday early is a good time to leave back to Helsinki, to catch Tuesday evening's ferry bound for Lübeck. Extensions either ahead of time or afterwards are of course possible, depending on what you want to do. Tuesday's ferry arrives back in Germany at 2100 or so on Wednesday.

 

What do I need?

What you need to participate? Bring your car. Make sure it has winter tyres and antifreeze good down to -35C or so. If the battery is flaky, change it before coming. Add a tow rope and make sure you know where the towing eye is. That's most of it. For you drivers, it's even simpler: decent boots that you can drive in. You won't spend that much time outside (I will!) so the need for -40C-capable arctic clodhoppers isn't that great.

 

Costs

The cost question is also a big one. It depends an awful lot on what you want to do. This winter, we've introduced various different options for accommodation, so it's €60-65 per person per night based on two people sharing a room, €130 per person for food (breakfasts, lunch Saturday and Sunday, Dinner Saturday, 2 coffee breaks Saturday and Sunday) and €200 for track. I've seen a ballpark figure of €1000 and that's not far off; €200 for track, €250 for four nights, €250 for the ferry from Germany and then fuel. Experience says how much fuel depends a lot on the amount of sideways... For UK participants, there's the ferry from the UK to add in and around 500 miles each way from Calais to Lübeck. I saw recently that Dover - Calais was around £50 per direction when booked well in advance. Calais - Lübeck should take around 8 hours and check-in closes at 01:00, so an early start from the UK is very much doable. 

 

Really, I should bring my own car?

On the "I should bring my own car?" question: this always was intended to be about safety. So driving your own car, understanding its limits, the various different surfaces, how they are communicated, the ESP and ABS limitations - this all helps when returning to less extreme road conditions.

There will be no times taken, no trophies, and it's supposed to be serious, but light-hearted; any one may well end up in the snow bank at some point... it happens. The likelihood of damage is something we work hard at keeping to a minimum, with angled snow banks and cones to warn you, but it's up to you to take them seriously. We'll run some elktest and braking exercises to start with and start slowly. We'll also be taking breaks to make sure you have the opportunity to breathe. With enough interest I will engage instructor(s) to really help move things along.

 

 

Okay, I'm sold. What do I need to do next?

We ought to be running with 15 cars to make this happen, I think I can get away with fewer. Suggested dates are in the middle of February, specifically the 16th+17th. It could also be a week later, but much later than that runs the risk of the ice being too weak. 

 

We've swapped out the booking process this year to limit issues with last-minute cancellations, so any bookings are made directly with the hotel and accompanied by a non-returnable deposit equivalent to two night's accommodation. This secures your place and will be credited against your bill upon checkout. We'll run through the details on that when we know that this is definitely going ahead with enough participants.

 

Interested? Please answer in the thread. If it's just the date that doesn't suit, please say so.

 

If you've questions, let me know what they are and I'll do my best to answer them. We'll run through the booking process when the minimum number of cars is passed, and I'd like to get on with this, so please register your interest before midnight UK time on 23rd September.

 

A couple of pics for you from this year's event:

and a video from one of the attendees:

https://vimeo.com/253959150

 

Welcome to the north!

 

 - Bret

Should ping @Jaco2k and @Petunet about this - we should be able to find some space to do a quick comparison of cars

 

 - Bret

3 minutes ago, brettikivi said:

Should ping @Jaco2k and @Petunet about this - we should be able to find some space to do a quick comparison of cars

 

 - Bret

 

I am in

BTW, I host a FB group for my friend car enthusiasts where there are quite a few located in Finland - can I share this there or are you keeping it for Briskodians for now?

...there are not that many people in my FB group either

4 hours ago, brettikivi said:

Should ping @Jaco2k and @Petunet about this - we should be able to find some space to do a quick comparison of cars

 

 - Bret

 

I'll be there.

I'll be honest; I'm surprised at the lack of interest.... 

 

 - Bret

On 09/09/2018 at 21:09, brettikivi said:

I'll be honest; I'm surprised at the lack of interest.... 

 

 - Bret

 

Me too... Anyway, my interest is genuine, so you can count me in.

 

---edit--

@brettikivi do you know about the Finnish forum VAGarena? Maybe you could post there and get more interest.

I guess geographic location plays a part in the eagerness to attend, since admittedly it is a good trip from the UK to Finland.

Also, although snow driving is fun for everyone under any circumstances, FWD car owners might not be so much into it.

 

Edited 16 September, 20187 yr by Jaco2k