Without doubt World Rallying’s most popular competitor, Petter Solberg has a new website online now for a complete collection of gifts and car gear to buy online. You budget may not stretch to a full size WRC car, so get yourself an accurate 1:43 replica instead. Our favourite? If you’re planning a trip to Ice Driver this year, then the big Polar Hat is a must!

http://www.pscollection.no/en

For 2011, we’ve re-written two useful documents that we send out to our guests each year. The fist one is the Ice Driver Travel Guide. We’ve expanded it this year to include pretty much every way of getting to Ive Driver we can imagine. If you’re planning on traveling to us this year, you can download the PDF at this link here.
The second important guide we have is for all of the small businesses and corporate events companies out there. It’s the Ice Driver Corporate Event Brochure and it gives some information about how you can use the whole Ice Driver experience to reward and entertain your staff, guests and prospective clients in ways they’ll never have experienced before. You can download the brochure here

If you like the Ice Driver movie on our home page, you’ll love the High Definition version we’ve just uploaded onto our YouTube channel. Shot in 2009 on the then ground-breaking Canon 5D Mk2 by Neill Watson,it shows Andy McKenna in the BMW M3 Powered Compact at speedon our private frozen lake facility. Click Full Screen for the HD version

Our base in the UK is in North Yorkshire, where we’ve actually had more snow than in Sweden this month! So take a look at this video as a display of driver skill. Saltburn Bank is well known locally as being hard work in winter. It’s a 40% incline with three hairpin bends that stop any momentum you might have managed to generate. So in snow and ice, it takes driving skill like this to make it up.
So the question is why, when are all the drivers sliding about, even a Discovery 3, is a bus driver able to make it without a problem?

Two things. Traction and driver skill. The bus has a big overhang and the engine in the rear, so think of it as a long wheelbase Porsche 911. But that’s nothing without the skill and experience of the driver who balanced the power in the hairpins, using just enough to get around without spinning the inside rear wheel. Take a look at the racing line he takes too and we’d say that’s one guy we’d like to see at Ice Driver. We assume he got a round of applause from his passengers…..

Brand New Stilo WRC Helmets for Ice Driver 2011

Step forward the Stilo WRC design. It’s open face, but the fixed boom mike gives a rigid mounting and if you’ve been watching World Rally this year, you’ll see that most of the top crews are using Stilo kit, so that was good enough for us. So now we have a small mountain of brand new Stilo WRC helmets and base intercom units in the office, ready to be fitted into the Ice Driver fleet in Sweden. All we have to do is get over the shock of writing out the cheque….!

The difference between learning and teaching is a subtle one at first glance. Surely they’re pretty much one and the same thing, really, and what has that got to do with driving cars and having fun sliding on a frozen lake in Sweden? A dictionary lookup puts it into perspective, so consider this a moment:

Learn – “to find out or discover”
Teach - “cause to learn or understand, to give instruction or guidance”

There’s an important difference between Ice Driver and many of the other winter driving activities and without becoming too condescending, it’s the difference between teaching and learning…

If we simply give you the keys to our cars, you’d still probably have a great time and by the end of the day, you’ll have learned something, even if it’s only how to dig the car out of a snow bank….

However, the difference between learning and teaching is crucial to your whole experience and that where our instructor team come in. Each car has an ice driver instructor beside you every time you strap in. Our instructors are chosen for their ability to work with your existing skills and develop them further. We receive literally dozens of cv’s from instructors each year, but the team we use didn’t apply, they were asked because of their high standard of instructing ability.

We Don’t Sell Cars!

Also, don’t forget, we’re not in the car sales business! Car manufacturers provide some great driving programmes, indeed we often work behind the scenes create corporate events, TV programmes and car launches. If you’re invited to a car manufacturers event, you’d be foolish not to take up the offer. But at the end of the day, they’re in the business of selling cars, wether a new model or a competition car for this coming race / rally season. We’re in the business of making sure you have a great time and leave us a faster, safer, better, more confident driver than when you arrived, regardless of your previous experience.

The environmentally freindly race track - a frozen lake, of course

Firstly, the surface. Unlike most racing circuits constructed at vast expense using materials such as concrete, asphalt and other mined and excavated materials, our track is made from a 100% natural and renewable material – water. We use no chemicals or other additives to promote ice, we simply let nature take it’s course and monitor the creation of ice. Once we’re happy there’s enough of it, we sweep away the snow using a blower and we’re done. When spring comes, our track dissappears leaving no trace that we have ever been, then we wait again for next year. We carry environmental spill equipment in the unlikely event of an oil leak and always ensure that nothing is spilled onto the surface of the ice. How many other venues can claim to have a 100% natural, bio-degradable track surface?

Our cars all run standard unleaded fuel. Our northerly location means that E85 Ethanol is not yet widely available locally, but we’re conducting tests and as soon as we can see the benefits and know that it’s viable, we’ll be using it.

Wherever possible, our staff use the Swedish rail system for travel. The high speed, electrically powered trains use current pulled only from hydroelectric and wind-powered sources giving probably the most efficient public transport system in Europe. The rail system delivers you virtually to the front door of our hotel, cutting down on time consuming airport transfers. We recommend our clients & guests use the rail system for travel within Sweden.

This week’s blog post about our friends in Sweden has to be about the other Stig. Never mind about Ben Collins, that’s yesterday’s news. Our Stig, with a rally driver’s surname of Ecklund, is the multi-skilled guy that’s you’re sure to meet at some point when you visit us.

Stig Ecklund, or Sigge, is the main snow mobile safari operator that our guests choose for guided tours and snow mobile adventures through the wilderness. He’s also the guy who every year creates the tracks and layouts for us. Our lake is situated just a few kilometres from the village where he grew up, so he knows the area intimately.
His adventure company, Wild Adventures, was started more than ten years ago and every year takes guests from across Europe and beyond on snow mobile safaris through the Swedish wilderness. Sigge has been riding snow mobiles since the age of ten, back when the rules were, “If you can start it, you can ride it….” There were no electric start machines back then, so that was more of a challenge that it sounds.
Sigge’s modern machines all have electric start and heated handgrips, plus he supplies you with superb protective clothing. If do don’t wish to ride, but would still like the experience, the machines all have two seats so you could ride pillion with someone and take in the view.
Sigge’s work on our driving lake is never ending, with constant maintenance ongoing throughout the season, employing some of the tricks and techniques we’re all learned over the years to keep the surface perfect for Ice Driving.

If you visit Ice Driver this season, you’ll almost certainly meet Sigge and some of the other guys from the village of Bracke, all a vital part of making Ice Driver work for us every year.

Just a very short blog post today. No frozen water in this one, just lots and lots of vertically falling water in Yorkshire! On Sunday, Ice Driver director and chief instructor Andy McKenna jumped into Scooby Clinic owner Kev’s road going 22B Impreza. The car is used to develop performance enhancements for Scooby Clinic customers and is Kev’s daily transport. The event was the Scooby Shootout at Elvington in Yorkshre. Torrential rain and a poor tyre choice (whatever was on it when it arrived, basically,) made the car a bit wild, but Andy had a great time. His final run was not his quickest, but looked the biggest laugh. Most impressive parts of this short video are at the beginning and the end. The launch control of Kev’s 22B is pretty damn impressive, plus McKenna’s love of the final hairpin, that’s actually AFTER the finish line, is equally so….

Scooby Clinic supply our Impreza Turbo ice driver car each winter, as well as releasing Beefe, our technician, to run the fleet of cars over in Sweden for us. We’ll be writing more about both parties in the coming weeks, but meanwhile, enjoy the video and think about how cool that car would be on a frozen lake….