Ice driving an S3 and R8

When I went on my boarding holiday at the beginning of January in the Alps I stumbled upon an Audi test track that is untreated and is left to the eliments!

The test Track is between Val D'sere and Daille and they offer an hours drive in an S3/TT and also a passenger ride in and Audi R8! It is fully organised by Audi and looks well managed! The cars were pretty much brand new and looks the business!

The S3 I drove was bright Orange!

The S3 drive allows you to get to grips with driving in Ice and Snow around the track firstly with all the electronics swithed on and then once you get to grips with it, the ESP is switched allowing you to have complete control of the car. You also was asked to not allow the ABS to kick in when the ABS was switched off to further increased the difficulty level!

The instructor gave tips when you drove around and was really good. He allowed you to push the car not fully to it's limits but far enough for the conditions and on the straights allowed you to completely nail it before braking before the corner! Unless you wanted to plough through the snow walls! and break an Audi! The instructor also showed you how to go around the track and what to do.

Towards the end of the hour I was driving around ther track quick enough and even did a couple of corners full bore controlling the slide!

Obviously I couldn't resist a passenger ride in the R8. It was absolutley fantastic and no words can explain how it was to be in such a car. I'm sure it would have been more of a joy to drive it on tarmac but to ride as a passanger on snow was still satisfying!

At the same location is an Ice Karting track! Which was great fun....snow tires with studs in. Alot of fun. It is all setup with timing equipment so fastest laps can be recorded! I beleive the heavier you were the faster you would be as I didn't do very well at all :( on the dry I'd like to think i'm quite difficult to beat by the average driver.

overall a great experience and thought I'd share this with you all and maybe if you do go skiing or boarding in Val then you can take the extra cash and do what I did!