How to drift on ice

School’s in
Fellow class mates, here we have the equivalent of a Bachelor of Arts degree on wheels.

Or at least, that’s the expectation. Inside my cynical mind, taking on a European snow driving experience earlier this month sounded like an excuse for fun, meeting interesting people and ticking off some cool bucket list items along the way.

Basically an Arts degree majoring in Interpretive Dance.

I say that because learning to drive a German car on a frozen lake in Northern Sweden is seemingly non-relatable to Australian road conditions, especially in states where draconian road rules are at play (arguably all of them).

Nevertheless, welcome to ice driving 101.

What clearly beckons is perhaps the ultimate exercise in motoring curiosity -- travelling to pristine Arvidsjaur, a Swedish township on the cusp of the Arctic Circle, where the temperature tops out at a balmy minus-10 degrees Celsius and daylight only blankets the sparse landscape for six hours a day at this time of year.

Audi’s new ice pro experience, the top tier level of the German marque’s existing ice drive program, is the reason for our five-day sojourn. One where we hope to master the art of ice drifting, but end up going away with far greater car handling skills and know-how.

Available to everyday Aussie enthusiasts, the top-end ice drive package costs $A7000 (excluding flights), and includes accommodation in Arvisdjaur, transfers, tuition, meals and drinks and some awesome extra-curricular activities. We’ll get to those in a moment.

The scholars
Audi tends to keep the trainer-student ratio fairly inclusive on its official driving experience days, and the ice pro level of training whittles the mix down even tighter.

The instructors for our adventure are none other than Swedish rally champion Jerry Åhlin, and Audi Australia instructor and current racer Steve Pizzati.

A native of Sweden’s ubiquitous frozen lakes, Åhlin takes rallying, or any form of off-road driving for that matter, very seriously. The likeable former World Rally Championship driver is an encyclopaedia of knowledge, but clearly doesn’t suffer fools.

Temper that with Pizzati’s happy-go-lucky persona, the kind that landed him a coveted spot on the Australian Top Gear series a few years’ back, and between them you have an ice driving dream team of sorts.

The small group of eight students is all-Australian, with customers of varying driving abilities and backgrounds. All have completed at least phase one of Audi’s ice driving experience program, so they’re relatively confident behind the wheel.

The snow plough
The designated vehicle, or in the case of our first few attempts at driving on ice, snow plough, is Audi’s S5 Sportback.

Updated for 2017, the understated yet elegant five-seater boasts a 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 bringing 260kW/500Nm. A cursory glance of the spec sheet reveals a 0-100km/h time of only 4.7 seconds on regular terra firma, but more meaningful here is the S5’s wizardly all-wheel drive system, which is a more effective way to sling its 1660kg mass across the frozen stuff.

Tyres, naturally, are studded, ensuring some semblance of grip on the frozen Swedish lake we are to call home for the next three days. And the car’s rear-biased all-wheel drive system is well-versed in the art of oversteer – crucial, to some extent, in getting the S5 to dance on ice.

Getting aggression out of the system
You’d assume the practical component of the ice drive experience to be prefaced first by hours of tedious theory – just like your regular driver’s licence. But then, that’s where Audi’s program is different.

To my surprise, the very first exercise involves a fully-fuelled S5, all electronic reins switched off, and a frozen lake with an ice track carved out by tractor earlier in the morning.

The introductory circuit is roughly 800 metres long, two car lengths wide and is surrounded by a half-metre high snow bank.  It features turns of varying speed, angle and surfacing, marked out by orange reflectors.

Put simply, we’re allowed to go our hardest – the only limitation being if you get stuck on a snow bank, you need to wait for a nearby tractor to come pull you out of trouble.

Having travelled the better part of 30 hours to be here, the opening free-for-all is akin to waving a red rag in front of a bull. Barely five minutes with your correspondent in the hot seat, the poor S5 barely dips below 5000rpm, the steering wheel is constantly twirled from lock to lock and there is, quite literally, a snow storm emerging from its nicely sculpted rear.

Pin it, hold the drift, and plan for the next corner. Textbook.

Only it’s not. What I soon learn is that I’m doing everything wrong.

“We do it this way so that you get all the bad stuff out of the system,” Pizzati explains during a debrief afterwards. “If you try things the other way you end up having all these people sitting in the classroom thinking ‘that’s all interesting but when do you get to hit the ice?’.”

The science of snow driving
The most important lesson is to come from our Swedish rally ace that evening.

“On the ice,” explains Åhlin, in his impeccable accent, “it is very important to be smoose [smooth].”

“You all have some basic driving skills, so we’re not going to concentrate on those. We’re going to look at what’s important out there. The speed was OK, but the corners were too tight for many of you today.”

During the debrief, Jerry goes onto explain the importance of weight transfer, particularly ensuring weight over the turning tyres. There’s my first mistake.

“If your accelerator is wide open, and you’re using 100 per cent of grip on the rear wheels, you won’t be able to put weight over the turning wheels and make the corner,” he continues.

“You need to reduce the speed.”

There were other errors in the opening scrimmage. Incessant twirling of the steering wheel is a waste of time, it turns out. So, too, is my eagerness to perform lurid drifts, which can slow things down if you oversubscribe.

It’s much more effective to slow things down, be smoose. Channel your inner Jerry.

Practice makes perfect
Emerging from our five-star resort the following morning, belly’s chock-a-block from the buffet breakfast buffet, it’s time to hit the ice once again.

This time, I concentrate on staying on the track, being smooth, applying minimal steering and linking the turns together.

At first, there is varying success. Put another way, there are fleeting moments of achievement between plenty of needless sliding.

With failure comes errors. Pirouetting, comical errors. Once a car and its contents are sliding out of control, there are no guarantees of a successful recovery. There is an abject hopelessness in careering uncontrollably towards a snow bank, and the risk only increases as I gain more confidence and, in turn, speed.

Much of this is owed to understeer – the first uncomfortable characteristic of driver error. When the car doesn’t respond to the steering wheel, quite simply, nothing works – not the brakes, not more lock and certainly not the throttle.

“Slow it down, un-wind the steering and you’ll feel the car react. Trust me,” enthuses Pizzati. He’s dead right.

Applying our new skills
Over the course of the next three days, things start becoming second-nature.

We master the Scandinavian Flick, whereby the driver transfers the car’s angle, weight and direction by letting go of the accelerator mid-drift, allowing the car swing in the opposite direction, before replying the accelerator to continue forward momentum.

I constantly heed the advice of the instructors and soon, I’m left foot braking and deftly slinking my way through the different courses, which have by this stage extended to one massive 7.3km circuit.

Speeds have also increased dramatically. On one straight section of circuit, my navigator notifies me we’re travelling at 136km/h!

I’m ice driving. And much like your typical Arts student majoring in Interpretative Dance, I’m having the time of my life.

Extra-curricular activities
Even when you’re not ice driving, there’s always something happening on the Audi experience.

The crew is highly professional, offering regular meal and drink breaks, excellent amenities and a genuinely friendly service.

There are other benefits to being in Northern Sweden at this time of year. One night, before dinner in a secluded, fire-lit tee-pee, we experience a snow-mobile tour through forest and open fields. It is here that I get to tick a massive bucket list item: seeing the Northern Lights. Spectacular.

Needless to say, Arvisdjaur is an experience in itself. Used by dozens of car and truck manufacturers as a winter proving ground at this time of year, its largely-flat layout and cool climate is perfect for ice driving.

The dreaded timed run
Down to business. The final chapter of the ice drive experience entails a timed run on the ice circuit, bringing everything we’d learned in the preceding three days down to 10 precious minutes.

I’m quietly – foolishly, perhaps – confident. Pizzati gives me a final pep talk before I embark, solo, on the final 7.3km circuit.

With Jerry and Steve’s words of wisdom etched inside my head, I delicately thread the S5 through the varying turns of the circuit.

It’s smooth sailing, the end of the course is in sight.

Then the worst happens. I let my guard down momentarily and fate (tragedy) strikes.

Before I know it, I’m careering out of control towards a snow bank. I’m a passenger and by the time I get to the bend, the car is facing the complete opposite direction. A half-donut is in order to correct the mistake, and whatever buffer I had has, as I would later learn, evaporated.

Pirouettes aside, I can confidently say my car-handling abilities have improved exponentially after the Audi experience.

Some may consider ice drifting an interpretive dance of sorts. The truth is the skills acquired during the ice pro experience have prepared me for much, much more.