It was a familiar scene, having been to the Mécaglisse ice track in the Laurentians a few times in the past for the Porsche Ice Experience: thirty Porsche 911 Carrera S and Carrera 4S lined up just so, with the early morning sun reflecting off the immaculately clean cars under a beautiful blue sky.
But I couldn’t help but feel a touch wistful as I recognized that the days might be numbered for cars, even Porsches, powered exclusively by internal combustion engines. However, that minor melancholy phase did not last long as I exited the bus, excited once again to experience ICE on ice. The Porsche Canada team, all dressed in their red parkas, smiling and fist-pumping, greeted us happily, many of us participants wearing our red “Porsche Ice Experience” puffer jackets, an amazing gift to all of us when we checked in the previous evening.
This year, I did the one-day Ice Trial “appetizer” rather than the two- or three-day course, but the experience was similarly amazing and gratifying. We had a welcome dinner at The ROK, a unique restaurant embedded in the magnificent Estérel Resort, where we were hosted and served a multicourse meal, the main course served on hot stones, the final cooking done by the diners themselves. After an amazing buffet breakfast the next morning in the Le Voilier restaurant, we were suitably fortified for a technical briefing in one of the resort’s conference rooms. Jonathan Urlin, the Porsche Ice Experience Chief Instructor, led us through a presentation on understeer and oversteer, the traction circle, the handling differences between the all-wheel drive (AWD) Carrera 4S and the rear-wheel drive (RWD) Carrera S, as well as how the skills required for effectively negotiating an ice- or snow-covered track were, though somewhat different than doing so on dry pavement, still transferable.
By this time, my attention span was waning and, in the words of the legendary Roxette, “Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Chorus!” haha! By the time 9:11 AM arrived (get it, 911?), we were ready to get on the bus and have fun! It was time for ICE on Ice!
At the track, we met up with our instructors, my partner Brad and I paired up in the same car as part of the yellow group. Keith McIntosh was our chief instructor and quickly went over the basics of seating position with us, emphasizing, amongst other things, the importance of having one’s hips firmly planted in the seat pan and back against the back of the seat to ensure that the car can reliably communicate what it’s doing through the driver’s body.
Keith sensed our group’s desire to hit the ice in our Carreras, shod with Nokian Hakkapeliitta tires equipped with 1.5 mm studs. Before long, we were off, transiting to our first of five exercises, our group (one of five) starting the day in the AWD Carrera 4S.
Skid Pad
It was time to put the theory briefing (and past experience in my case) to test on the skid pad. I had great expectations of myself, having been to the ice track several times before, and was gratified to find that some, but not all(!), things came back fairly quickly. Keith took each of us through multiple runs on the snow and ice-covered skid pad, giving instructions and encouragement to us as he watched from outside the cars, communicating to us through handheld radios firmly ensconced in the cars’ cupholders. We explored the cars’ limits while understeering (when the front of the car hits the wall, as they say) and oversteering (when the rear of the car hits the wall) our way around the skid pad.
Vision
The skid pad exercise, and all the ones that followed in the other stations, strongly relied on keeping your eyes up and looking where you wanted to be, not at where you might be headed – the hand and feet will always follow your eyes. As Keith mentioned, have you ever wondered why seemingly everyone who loses control hits the lone mailbox on the snow-covered road? It’s because they were looking at it, not where they should be going. Wow, was he ever right! ICE on Ice could be so enjoyable when you have great instructors.
Slalom
The slalom station was all about demonstrating the effects of weight transfer on each of the four tires’ traction circles – the amount of grip provided by the tires, which varies with the road surface combined with whether you are braking, accelerating, or throwing the car into a corner. Well, it was not “all about” weight transfer but also about vision, a common theme. When I was finally able to reliably look at the last of five or so cones in the line, instead of the one or two in front of the car that I would otherwise invariably hit, all my efforts of transferring weight and swinging the car around the cones like a pendulum paid off.
Handling Course
Just before lunch, we were able to put together much of what we’d learned up to that point by tackling a “handling course” laid out with slalom sections, a section where we could make good use of a Scandinavian “flick” (though we hadn’t been shown that yet), as well as sections where we could explore the effects of oversteer and understeer, as we’d done on the skid pad. It was great fun and, perhaps, the most enjoyable portion since we could play at the car’s adhesion limits in those few areas where our instructor couldn’t see us, haha! ICE on Ice could be so much fun!
Lunch Break
Our group was among others that went to the second “shift” of lunch. Would there be any food left?! Of course, there was! An amazing selection of hot food, salads, desserts, and hot and cold beverages (no alcohol!) greeted us. I sat down with others in our yellow group (remember, yellow is best!), and soon, we were comparing notes and swapping tall stories with our hands waving around in the air, similar to how fighter pilots describe their aerial combat.
Weight Transfer (Lift, turn, brake)
Someone stole our cars! Well, no, not really. After lunch, we took over some of the rear-wheel drive Carrera S Porsches after the other groups took off with the AWD Carrera 4S Porsches that we’d been driving throughout the morning. This station built on our growing knowledge of weight transfer (and the vision imperative of keeping one’s eyes up) to finesse the car around a 90-degree turn by first lifting off the accelerator (something I was told to be very wary of on a paved race track!), initiating the turn with a large steering wheel input, and then braking to transfer weight to the front of the car, thereby reducing the size of the traction circle of the rear tires and inducing an oversteer condition by way of a brief drift. Of course, it would have been easier to use the 443 hp on tap to do much the same thing by tapping the accelerator, but that would have been cheating!I struggled at first while adapting to not having the added “advantage” of the AWD cars, but I quickly learned that getting the RWD vehicles “unsorted” through a 90-degree turn was great fun and probably represented an easier and more efficient way around the corner than with the AWD cars.
Scandinavian Flick
Were we nearing the end of the day? Oh no! ICE on ice was going to finish soon! The next station (and the last one for us) was the Scandinavian or “rally” flick station, another method used to negotiate a 90-degree turn that better preserves the car’s momentum. As Keith McIntosh described it, it is one of the most challenging and useful skills to have in one’s repertoire for ice course navigation, such as in ice rally driving – even accomplished rally drivers have to do ‘rep’ after ‘rep’ to get it right and are constantly honing this skill every year. Only seven steps in the manoeuvre. Good. No pressure!
I can’t do complete justice describing it myself, but essentially, you approach the corner from the inside of the corner as if you’re going to early-apex it, steer quickly towards the outside of the turn, lift off the accelerator, apply a bit of brake to start rotating the car, release the brakes, and then hit the accelerator to break the rear end loose while counter-steering into the turn. It was every bit as hard as it sounds. However, remembering to keep my eyes up and watching where I wanted to go, facilitated this technique and I avoided the snowbanks. By the end of what seemed like countless ‘reps’, I was able to nail it a few times in a row! What a satisfying way to end the day.
Wrap-Up
We transited back to the chalet and were greeted with a final surprise. Our instructors grabbed us one by one to do fast laps around the handling course below the chalet, with our instructors doing the driving. During my fast lap with our instructor, Keith, it was astonishing to listen to him talking conversationally about everything except what was ahead of him while expertly carving the ice and snow track at high speed, sometimes sideways, through the handling course. After I caught my breath, I watched and videoed the event from the chalet as a couple of the instructors danced their cars together, sometimes straight, sometimes sideways, as if part of a carefully choreographed dance.
So, that was a wrap for 2024. ICE on Ice was incredible fun. I’ll be back next year! Maybe by that point we will be driving some non-ICE Taycans or Caymans on the ice with Porsche Canada Ice Experience and “Electrons on Ice” will be OK after all? </>
