LYDIA LASSILA LIFE IN SNOW LANE

For Australian Olympic gold medallist Lydia Lassila, cars have always been a big part of life whether it’s heading to training or to the slopes.

The aerial skiing champion, a Suzuki ambassador, gets to drive a Vitara Turbo. The compact SUV fits Lassila’s lifestyle with plenty of room for kids and a zippy engine.

As a teenager in the ’90s, there was no cooler car for Lassila than a Vitara soft-top. Instead, for her first car, she had to make do with a Toyota Crown hand-me-down from her brother.

Growing up on a farm coupled with going to school in Melbourne meant long daily commutes. Family road trips along the Great Ocean Road with four kids sandwiched in the back of the family Ford Fairlane added to the long hours spent in cars.

Lassila reckons growing up on a farm made learning to drive easy. “We had all kinds of farm bombs that my brothers and dad would take around the farm,” she says.

“So we had a lot of cars that you could kind of jump in and get a bit used to. I used to sit on my dad’s lap when I was a young kid and do the steering around the farm.”

When the time came to drive on public roads, the long commute to school came in handy.

“I learned stick on my dad’s Holden Rodeo and started to drive with Mum to school. But she always ended up falling asleep on the way back so it was like I was driving by myself,” she says.

Lassila’s career has taken her around the world with most of her time spent in Europe and North America. On the icy northern hemisphere roads, she finetuned her cold weather driving skills — one experience at Canada’s Apex Mountain stands out.

“We had a team van that was really dodgy and was on summer tyres,” she says.

“It would dump with snow and you would have to drive half an hour down the mountain through sharp hairpins to get to the main village and you were slipping and sliding everywhere.

“It was dangerous but I learned how to turn sharp corners and descend in snow conditions.”

Her dream driving experience would put her snow driving skills to the test — she wants to fang a Porsche on a frozen lake in Finland.

Lassila is no stranger to going fast on a track, having done several drive days with Suzuki and competed in the celebrity race at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

“I went all right (at the Grand Prix) but I wasn’t expecting people to really bump you and go for it. People weren’t looking after the cars. It was like Donkey Kong,” she says.

Australia’s speed limits and driver skills suffer from comparison with those in Europe in particular, she reckons.

“What annoys me in Australia is the speed limits are very low. People put so much emphasis on sticking to the speed limit and not showing 5km/h over,” she says

“You get to Europe and other places in the world and you are allowed to drive a lot faster. And people are equipped to do that.

“People here don’t have the skills to drive properly. I think the driving tests should be harder. And I think that is the issue rather than sticking to the 100 kays on a freeway.”