I recently had the opportunity to go ice driving with Volvo in Sweden. I knew it was going to be fun, but my thought went something along the lines of “It’s going to be great, but I mean, it’s a Volvo. It’s not exactly going to be amazing”. Boy, was I mistaken.
I’ve attempted drifting before and I had a blast with that. This though, this was nothing like that. It’s more slippery, easier to get the car sideways and, as a result, I found it a lot more entertaining.
We were given the keys to a new Volvo V40 Cross Country and a V60 Hybrid, shown a diagram of the course, taken on one slow loop with a lead car and that was that. The rest was up to us. So, we went wild. There’s nothing but snow banks to crash into, so it was a relatively safe environment. If you found yourself parked in the snow, an XC60 would come and collect you and you’d be free to do it all again.
We were each given enough seat time to get a good feel for the car and to get increasingly better at ice driving. By the end of the day, the whole lot of us felt like we could sign up for the Swedish Rally, taking place the following weekend.
I am positively hooked and would go back any day.
Here’s a look at one of my first runs. Even if I have to say so myself, I got better with more time behind the wheel and as the day progressed.
