Get a Grip!
I confess, I’m afflicted by road rage. It doesn’t happen all the time. In fact, it only appears when a foot of fresh snow buries the Wood River Valley and some wide-eyed tourist in a Chrysler Mini Van is holding a mile of overheated powder skiers to a safe and sane fifteen miles per. With no place to pass on the two lane road that stretches for eight miles between my driveway and Bald Mountain, I can do little other than grit my teeth and malign the driver’s skill, intelligence and legitimacy.
“Go back to Mississippi!” I mutter impotently. Or, for that matter, any other Confederate state where an inch of slush marks the decade’s meteorological high point.
My road rage has a Siamese Twin that craves speed. I cannot resist sliding my F-150 pickup around the icy corner at the end of my street and am convinced that rallying down a snowy road bears a strong resemblance to racing in a World Cup Giant Slalom. For those reasons alone, I jumped at the chance to attend BMW of North America’s winter driving school at the historic Chateau Montebello, Quebec, an hour east of Ottawa.
The class commenced at an evening theory session where a group of nine men and three women were introduced to instructors Marc Surer and Pierre Savoy. Born in Basel Switzerland, Surer is an elegant, charismatic man who raced Formula One and Rally Cars in the eighties. While rallying in Europe, Surer blew a front tire at high speed and was badly burned in the ensuing wreck. If his injuries now cause him to place his feet with cat like precision, he is still an incredible driver. Now in his mid forties, when Surer isn’t teaching this course, he works as a European TV color commentator for motor racing.
Pierre Savoy, Surer’s counterpart, combines a history of hotel management, formula racing and driver training. Once the head instructor for the Richard Spinard driving school (from which Formula 1 Champion Jacques Villenueve matriculated) Pierre adds a Quebecois’ sense of humor, to an infectious enthusiasm for fine, fast cars.
If I assumed that our rides would look like refugees from an old Mel Gibson Road Warrior flick, I was surprised the following morning by six shining silver BMW 328is. The Devil in me fell hard in love with the 328is’ sculpted sheet metal, heated black leather seats, big horse power and five on the floor! “Dis vill be sehr fun!” the Beemer whispered in fractured Hoch Deutsche, “.....a lot von fun!”
Until I gripped the 328is wheel, I planned to raise hell. I wanted to rip open the envelope--exceed the limits of common sense and skid pad G Forces until the bank loomed inviolate, unavoidable and solid in the right passenger window. And, in truth, I would have had virtually no conscience if the rig had been a bent up Pinto, a smoking old Buick sedan or some other American make that had seen too many miles of salty service. But the 328is was brand new! No scratches, no dings, no rock chips in the windshield, not even a missing hubcap! The Beemer was so far above the best rig I’d ever owned that the mere thought of wrinkling a quarter panel or denting a door, gave me a nervous tic.
After instructing the class in seat adjustment, hand placement and cross over steering Pierre and Marc guided us through the finer points of the 328is’ traction control, ABS brakes and steering. Through the use of drag races on ice, foot to the floor braking (with and without ABS) and right and left power slides, we explored the limits of traction. The 328is’ dramatic throttle response, four wheel discs and nearly perfect weight distribution of 50.2% front, 49.8% rear, created a brilliantly stable platform. I loved sliding the BMW in sweeping fast circles--so much, in fact, that Marc finally hailed me on the walky talky.
“Uh, Andy, let’s give the other drivers a chance now,” he said as I sailed by spraying rooster tails of ice across the track.
As the shadows lengthened across the lake, we practiced panic braking and hand brake turns then lined up for a dual slalom race. Pierre and Marc demonstrated how to thread six pylons, throw a hand brake turn then race back through the pylons to a finishing stop.
During the evening theory class, Marc Surer described what is known as the Kamm Circle, a diagram that explains the relationship between braking and lateral traction. To over simplify the concept, when braking increases, lateral traction decreases. Until that moment, I never understood why, when you jump on the brakes in a corner, the car starts to slide.
On our final day we followed Marc and Pierre into the hardwood forests that surround Montebello. To be exact, we entered a labyrinth of icy logging roads. At this point Marc upped the ante. Setting a 50 kilometer limit on the snowy road, he instructed us to accelerate toward a hard right turn then slam on the ABS brakes. The point was to observe how the ABS allowed the 328is to remain within the KAMM Circle and continue turning. That is if you held your speed to exactly 50. One student, however, exceeded the limit by 10 kph.
Hurtling into the corner, the back end kicked out and he plowed into the bank. A second later, Marc’s voice filled the open channel.
“Patrick, it is not funny to tear up the car,” he said. Until then, Surer had been remarkably even tempered but studying the buried 328is, he allowed the least anger to eddy into his voice. “If you refuse to listen to my instructions,” he said. “I will have to remove you from the class.”
Patrick’s Beemer was scraped but not dented and after extricating it, we moved to the last demonstration. Fitting chains to the rear wheels, we started down a deep forest road. Marc described how when inexperienced drivers wander onto a snowy shoulder, they instinctively crank the wheel to bring it back onto the pavement. When the car continues to plow ahead, they increase the turn until the front wheels finally grab, throwing the car into the oncoming traffic or a roll over. The point of the exercise was to experience understeer, but it quickly degenerated into a high speed snowmobile race. Surrounded by Quebec's rolling hills and hardwood forests, half a dozen BMWs sped through the deep, untracked snow.
Though the day ended with a final timed competition on the frozen lake, the strongest insights occurred that morning in the woods. Here in Quebec’s deep snow and icy corners, we practiced the slides, breaking and acceleration that form the foundation for controlled winter driving. And when we finally returned to the pavement, my Devil’s need for speed was strangely silent.
BMW postulates that even the best hardware, (ie abs brakes, traction control, airbags and crush zones) mean little if the software (read driver skill) is asleep at the wheel. The truth is, no rationale was required. The chance to drive a 328is on ice and snow, was reason enough to come to Quebec. If the hours on the skid pad and forays into the Quebec woods taught me one thing, it is to engage brain before you mash on the throttle. Keeping that thought in mind, I figure the next time some guy in a Mini Van is holding traffic to a numbing fifteen miles per hour, instead of beating the dash, spinning my wheels and risking a head on, I’ll repeat Pierre Savoy’s motto. When it comes to ice and snow, he believes, “You actually go faster by going slower.”