The wife and I went Ice Racing today at Georgetown Lake! We both took the day off and went to their Fun Day. We probably got ~15 runs in a piece and learned a lot about the mystic art of racing on a frozen lake...
For reference, we drove two different cars:
-My 2015 Subaru WRX equipped with Michelin X-Ice Xi3 tires. For reference, these tires are made with Michelin's “low rolling resistance” compound that comes with a 40k mile warranty. Needless to say, racing on a lake isn't exactly the forte of these tires.
-Her 2013 Subaru WRX equipped with Arctic Claw studded snow tires (stock sized).
Both are mechanically stock.
What we learned:
1) Tires make a HUGE difference! This seems like common sense (it is), but by the end of the day, having driven both cars several times, I wasn't shocked that studded tires bump you into a different class. By all rights, my 2015 WRX should be faster than her 2013 on equal tires (2015= newer, stiffer chassis, ect), but with me behind the wheel of both cars, her car was faster and I could feel the extra clawing grip of the studs! My car's Michelin's don't have the rigid, biting edge that you find on most snow tires due to the low rolling resistance thing. As it turns out “eco-friendly snow tires” aren't ideal for racing on a frozen lake!
2) Playing with the 3 “modes” on my '15 WRX and 2 “modes” on her '13 WRX was a mixed bag. On or Off? Well, it depends:
-With me driving, in my '15 w/o studded tires I got a couple of “hero runs” in while running “mode 3” (everything turned off), but it was very tough to be consistent. However, “mode 1” (everything turned on) seemed to actually be just as fast and far more consistent, even if it wasn't quite as fun. The torque (brake) vectoring with everything turned on was actually helpful and cut down on terminal understeer. I could feel the ECU applying brakes (vectoring) in order to help kick the rear end out while still maintaining control. “Mode 2” just seemed to confuse the car and stability control just kicked in at odd times, making it less consistent.
-With me driving the wife's '13 w/studded tires, turning everything off yielded the fastest and most entertaining results; especially with handbrake application around long sweeping 180 degree turns.
-With the wife driving her own '13, she was much faster with everything left On. She couldn't get a clean run in with traction/stability control off and was losing every heads up match. Then she turned off her car, turned it back on and forgot to turn T/C off.... we didn't notice it until she won her next heads up match against an EVO X! All of her runs were much faster and cleaner with T/C on.
3) Using the handbrake in order mitigate understeer around the long, sweeping 180 turns works with studded tires, but not so much with the eco-friendly Michelins.
-In my car (non-studded), in "mode 3" (everything off) using the handbrake would kick the rear end out, but the car didn't have as much acceleration traction as needed in order to pull it back into a straight line. I got it to work a time or two, but mostly the handbrake initiated a very slow rear end slide that was difficult to recover from and the eventual countersteer just made it tougher to control. Applying power would generally just end with my wheels spinning while I continued to slide in a non-intended direction. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty and it wasn't fast. Note- if you try to leave traction/stability control on and use the handbrake, it won't swing the rear end out; just feels like you're using the brake pedal.
-In the wife's car (studded), using the handbrake to defeat terminal understeer worked beautifully! I would apply a bit of handbrake prior to the 180 degree pivot point, which would swing the tail end out a bit, then I would power out of it feeling like a rally champion! The studs really dug into the ice to a much greater degree than I expected and driving both cars back to back really differentiated the two. I was able to repeatedly produce ~30 foot long snow/ice drifts that ended with me pointing directly through my intended pylon gate without a problem. Not only did it look cool and feel awesome, it was actually pretty fast to boot, as I was able to carry a lot of speed through and out of the turns.
Note: handbrake technique really only seemed useful for long 180 degree pivot points on glared ice that occurred after you picked up some speed and only with the studded tires. Even then, it was only useful with the studded tires on the wife's car, as I could actually power out of the slide. For all other sections of the courses the handbrake technique didn't seem useful or fast; only 180 degree hairpins after a straight. Think something along the lines of this video; but on ice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVmSAZJdkhQ
4) Turn early. Someone mentioned it earlier and its good advice. Start turning before your intended pivot point; as it takes the tires a bit of time to catch up with the wheel. This is even more important without the studs.
Overall we both had a blast! My biggest regret about today is that we spent so much time driving that we didn't get a whole lot of photos; and the ones we did get really didn't accurately depict how much fun we had! With that said, here's a few shots from today:
