Porsche school laughs in the face of snow
“Spin! Spin! Spin!”
Just moments ago, instructor Pierre Des Marias had been likening the partnership of driver and car in slippery conditions to that of competitive ballroom dancing. From the crackle on the radio, it sounds like somebody’s performing an unintended pirouette.
With a grind and a shudder of ABS braking, our flat-six tango comes to a sudden halt while a green Cayenne is deployed to haul the errant twirler out of a sticky snowbank.
If you’ve recently watched The Wolf of Wall Street, you might be under the impression that 911s are all about diving nose first into a pile of white powder. These days, Porsche will teach you how to stay out of the white stuff — and how to get sideways in it.
It’s called Camp4, and it’s all about getting a sash-full of merit badges in hoonery. Here, on the snowbound racetrack of Mecaglisse, amid the drifting snow and icy cold, we wait again to pit 400 Stuttgart-bred horses against the weather.
The series of driving exercises seems simple, but certain aspects require reprogramming of human nature. For instance, when a car plows straight on, the tendency is to dial in even more steering. Defeating understeer actually requires unwinding the wheel to regain control.
Hustling through a slalom illustrates the importance of weight transfer in low-traction situations. A tap of the brake shifts inertia forward onto the steering wheels, but unloads the rear end and makes for a glorious slide. Get a little too enthusiastic and it’s going to be a really bad day for a few cones.
If the idea of dashing through the snow in a Porsche strikes you as a bizarre amalgam of Hinterland’s Who’s Who and The Fast and the Furious, it shouldn’t. While the Caymans, 911s, and even a Panamera Hybrid here might seem better suited to a heated garage and a trickle-charger, Porsches have always been a year-round proposition. While Audi’s ownership of Lamborghini has helped the rampant bull of Sant’Agata don snowshoe-shoes, and while Ferrari makes the nuttiest all-wheel-drive system ever seen in its V-12 FF, Porsche has had allweather competency sewn up for decades. Porsche’s 1980s supercar, the iconic 959, needed little more than a suspension lift to storm across the sandy desert and claim victory in the Dakar rally.
For 200 entrants, the Camp4 experience is either the hoon of a lifetime, or a chance to develop instinctual skills that will help prevent an accident in bad weather. It’s not inexpensive: the Camp4 entry fee is $5,195 for a four-day camp with two days of instruction, and the Camp4S program costs $6,195 for a five-day experience, which includes three days of instruction.
After this experience, I wonder if all of Canada might benefit from Quebec’s mandatory winter-tire legislation: the idea that all-season-tires are capable of handling snow and ice deserves immediate dissolution. Even if your area doesn’t see drifting snow often, normal all-season tires are usually useless below 7 C, as they harden up like a hockey puck.
More than that, though, is the re-framed idea of what the definition of a supercar might be. On a racetrack, the virile Italian stallions might seem to be without peer. However, with apologies to Ned Stark, winter is always coming, and the true test of a machine is how it handles the more difficult conditions. “Spin! Spin! Spin!” But just as the instructor lifts the walkie-talkie and thumbs the button to halt the fun, a little extra steering input and a boot-full of throttle brings this particular Porsche back from the edge of no return. A careful toe tickles the accelerator, the flat-six snarls with a rasp and cough, the rear-view mirror shows a contrail of airborne snow and ice.
Time to dance again: let’s try for the full triple Axel!