Fancy going ice driving?
Monday February 1, 2010 - Email this article to a friend

Having witnessed the chaos on the UK's icy roads this winter PlanetSKI reporter, Jane Peel, decided to visit the Ice Driving Circuit in Tignes Les Brevieres while out in the resort. It was certainly something different to do.

The easiest way to get to the village of Tignes Les Brevieres from the main resort of Tignes is to ski there.

And on a beautiful sunny day, I get a bird's eye view of what lies in store.

Down there in the valley below is the Circuit Glace de Tignes - a twisting, turning driving track, 800 metres long, and covered in sheet ice.

I am on my way to drive around it in a small saloon car.

The circuit

The boss, Francois Chol, is waiting for me. Francois is a four-wheel drive specialist and runs 4x4 extreme driving courses in the mountains in the summer.

Five years ago he decided there was a market for teaching ice-driving skills. He set up the Tignes Circuit with Eric Favre, a former French Rally Driving Champion.

Now every winter, as soon as the first snowfall covers the grassy field, they get to work making the circuit, continually adding water, turning it to ice. Gradually the ice thickens. Now in mid-January it's about 25cm deep.

"We are a school", Francois tells me. "We teach all levels of drivers, from people who want to learn the basic techniques of driving in the snow and ice here in the mountains, to those who want to go faster and slide. We have rear-wheel drive, front-wheel drive, and four-wheel drive vehicles, so people can learn in the type of car they have."

My car is to be a Renault Clio. It is fitted with winter tyres which are softer than the average and have a tread designed for better traction.

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So the good news is I should have better grip than I would back in the UK. The bad news is that the cars do not have ABS brakes. "That would make it to easy," Francois tells me. "We need to stress how important it is to brake very slowly".

The first step in my lesson is to be driven slowly around the circuit as Francois explains the other key techniques. He tells me my hands should be in same position as the hands on a clock when the time is a quarter past nine. "This is good for safety," he says.

When taking a right hand bend, my right hand must move to just above the left hand before turning the steering wheel and vice versa.

It gets slightly more complicated when negotiating a hairpin bend, involving moving one hand to the bottom of the steering wheel.

And, of course, I must not forget to brake only when the wheels are in a straight line, and then turn. I must accelerate as I turn the steering wheel back the other way.

All this sounds pretty straightforward - until I get to try it myself. I'm driving very slowly, but even so, getting the hands in the right position takes some concentration. I seem to be fine on some corners, but decidedly shaky on others.

Then just as I start to crack it, Francois makes me drive around the circuit in the other direction. I speed up a little. I'm told to pass close to some strategically-placed cones to perfect my driving line.

I brake a little too hard. I slightly over-steer on a corner. Francois has his hand hovering over the handbrake, but I don't crash.

With the lesson over, I ask Francois how long it takes an average driver with no special skills (in other words, me) to perfect ice driving.

"It depends," he says. "It's difficult for people because they come and they drive the way they normally drive. We train them, but they need practice. I would say it usually takes between six and ten lessons before you start to feel the sliding technique".

My ice-driving experience ends with Francois putting me in the passenger seat while he shows me how it's really done. It's fast and furious - a real adrenalin rush.

I clearly have a lot to learn.

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