Arctic Drifts

By Chad Lückhoff

Visibility is poor. I can see no more than 80 meters ahead of me, and to make matters worse, the snow spray from the car ahead still hangs in the air. It's a windless day and there’s a heavy blanket of mist around me. I come out of the corner and wait for the car to settle. The temptation is there to floor it out of the turn, but I'm in the middle of a delicate balancing act, right on the very limits of adhesion. Eventually, the car straightens out, and, as the next corner is a good few hundred meters away, I punch the throttle, which sends the revs soaring. The speed builds as the cacophonous roar of the supercharged V8 bellows from its quad-exit exhausts. Through the gears the mighty Jaguar races, punctuated by a bark on each upshift as I rocket towards the next corner. I'm hard on the brakes and the nose squirms, fighting for what little traction there is. It feels like I'm driving on ice... because I am, in fact, driving on ice!

The tail washes to and fro and I'm having to keep it from overtaking the front end with a series of quick steering inputs. I turn in to the right, but the front is unresponsive – I've overcooked it. Or have I?

I stay on the brakes and the front tyres again find some grip as I open the steering a little. The nose darts into the corner long before the apex and the tail lets go to the left. This time I leave it to do what it wants to. The rear end rotates around and I'm now facing the inside of the turn as the speed is slowly scrubbed off. I wait... against all better judgement and everything I've learned in my years of driving, I wait.

With the steering neutralized, I feed in some power. The exhausts rumble as I feather the throttle, feeding in small inputs while balancing the wayward tail with the loud pedal. The front end is now controlled by the steering, the rear by my right foot. I still can't make out the exit – the fog is too thick – but I trust that the next straight is where it's supposed to be. Ordinarily, I wouldn't be this brave, but this is the final day of the experience and my skills are being tested. I'm confident that I can control the car, despite the appalling conditions. I wasn't always this gutsy, though.

It's 6 pm on a Saturday, several days earlier, and I'm walking through O. R. Tambo International airport, 3 hours ahead of my 9 pm flight to Germany. Germany is only a stopover, a brief flirt with the chilly Northern Hemisphere winter before continuing onto the Scandinavian town of Arvidsjaur in Northern Sweden. From there my dad and I will take a bus to Arjeplog, an hour away and mere minutes from the edge of the Arctic Circle. I check the temperature of my final destination, it's a brisk -19-degrees. In the 30-degree plus Johannesburg summer, it’s almost impossible to wrap my head around this impending change of climate.

Months of planning and running around for visas and travel insurance culminates in this moment: I'm on my way to go and immerse myself in the Jaguar Land Rover Ice Academy, one of three tailored experiences crafted by Jaguar Land Rover to showcase their wares. As we set off, I wonder if the frozen lakes of Arjeplog are as beautiful as the brochure leads me to believe - vast expanses of ice where manufacturers come to test their cars in the most gruelling and demanding conditions imaginable.

The 10-hour flight to Germany is as eventful as 5-day cricket, except that it feels twice as long, undoubtedly due to the anticipation that makes it feel longer than the 10 hours it is.

We touch down in Munich and discover that our shuttle to the hotel has departed without us. Without call-roaming on my cell phone, I'm left to traditional call boxes which eat up Euros at an alarming rate. I'm using Rands here buddy, take it easy. I wonder if this setback is setting the trend for the week ahead and try my best not to let it get to me. Thank goodness for Uber.

The next morning, we locate the other South Africans joining us on this adventure – two couples from Johannesburg and Cape Town respectively – and this time we manage to catch the shuttle back to the airport. It's time for the second flight, heading to Arvidsjaur, and the second of the three legs in our journey.

We fly over the Baltic sea and watch as the landscape changes from a rich green to a high-contrast deep-blue and white. The blue starts to fade as we fly over Stockholm and onwards to the North. Lakes, rivers and countryside start blending into one vast, lonely, white expanse.

We've barely hit the tarmac when the pilot reverses thrust and climbs all over the brakes. Clearly, this runway is a tad short – it’s a small airport, then. The broom-closet that serves as a terminal confirms my suspicions: we're in the middle of nowhere. What is apparent though, is that the airport is quite accustomed to receiving foreign parties who are involved in the motor trade. There are no cellular service provider adverts on the walls, but rather branding for the various manufacturers which swoop down in the winter months to test their wares. There are permanent desks in the arrivals hall for the likes of Audi, BMW and Mercedes-AMG. Bosch is represented, as is ZF Transmissions.

A blanket of snow, at least 3-feet deep, surrounds us as we board a bus for the final leg of the journey. We've made it safely to Sweden, and it's this final section of the trip on snow-riddled, ice-covered roads that drives reality home – I'm about to experience something magical.

It is believed that the Sami language of the Nordic countries has over 300 variations of words to describe snow and its many forms. That is quite a jump from the 50-or-so words that Eskimos have, but I soon realize why. As a motoring journalist, I'm always considering my story, the way in which I will craft the tale of my adventure to those who read it. It's here on the bus ride to Arjeplog, surrounded by trees burdened by snow, lakes transformed into solid rinks of ice, that I realize that my vocabulary is severely lacking – I struggle to think of the words to describe the landscape.

Mile after mile we pass fluffy pine trees and boulder-like snow banks before arriving at the Hotel Silverhatten up on the hill, overlooking the estuaries of the Uddjaur lake. It's time to rest our travel-weary legs, because tomorrow will see an early start and our first taste of driving on the frozen lakes.

With the sun only rising at 8:30 (and subsequently setting at an extremely early 15:30, only giving us a few hours of sunlight), our 7 am breakfast call has us sipping coffee in the dark. We pass by our rooms one last time to gather gloves, scarves, beanies and cameras, before climbing into the Range Rover Sports idling outside the front door, ready to take us to the Jaguar Land Rover lodge on the banks of the deepest lake in Sweden, the Hornavan. The depth is of no relevance to us, as we will be taking to the ice which rests on top of it. Reports vary, but it is believed that there will be at least 3 meters of hard-packed ice underfoot – we have our reservations, but the ice grader, which weighs at least 12 tonnes, has safely wandered to-and-fro on the ice without an issue, so a Range Rover should hardly make a dent, or even a crack, for that matter.

We are divided into groups and introduced to our instructors (and possibly the most important person on the team, the recovery specialist). My group, conveniently named “Group B”, is led by Jaguar and McLaren test driver, Andre D'Cruze from the UK, and race school owner/operator, Jan Wouters from Belgium. Our Hail Mary man is Ian from the UK.

The first task sees us in Jaguar F-Pace 30ds as we are led out onto the lake’s frozen surface. Group B first heads out onto the Large Circle, one of several tracks carved into the ice where we can put the cars through their paces. The task is simple: First, with all safety systems engaged, we drive around the extremely wide, large circle in an anti-clockwise direction, getting a feel for the levels of grip on the ice. The F-Paces are equipped with Nokian Hakkapeliitta 9 tyres, a winter tyre with knock-in tungsten studs, but still the grip levels are low, somewhere between a wet road and a wet skidpan.

Our second trip around the circle has us switch off some of the systems by selecting TracDSC, a mode which allows some tyre slip and sideways angle, but still limits the amount of slip and engages the stability control when things get a little too far out of hand. Now, the instructors have us veer outward of the circle and pull the nose back in towards the centre, chipping away at the radius of the arc. As we do this, we are instructed to lift off of the accelerator, transferring the weight to the front tyres, giving them more grip and taking the weight off the rears, which results in the back-end stepping out. A few laps of this and we've got an idea of how we're going to be initiating the slides that we saw in the brochure.

A quick comfort break sees us changing cars. Our group switches to Range Rover Velar D300 HSEs and head out to one of the two dynamic platforms for a slalom exercise. Here, for the first time, we will be disabling all of the active safety systems, and the onus will rest on the fleshy bits behind the wheels to stop the large SUVs from spinning out.

With a similar adaptive AWD system in the Velar as the F-Pace, on the ice, the Velar has a natural tendency to favour rear-wheel drive power distribution. This means that we can generate some impressive sideways angle with the ability to pull the vehicle back from the edge of danger with some generous throttle input, the power then being sent to the front wheels to help correct a slide.

It's a process of accelerating into the chicane, turning in and lifting off of the power simultaneously, and then waiting, waiting for the rear to lose traction and rotate around to where you want the Velar to point. You neutralize the steering and apply power. This sends you barreling down to the next set of cones. You preempt the next turn and soon you're lifting off and sliding sideways through the gates. Naturally, you often get it wrong, very wrong, and you end up switching ends in a flurry of snow spray and ice chips, all four wheels spinning and the vehicle stationary while you try to redeem some of your shattered dignity.

The day's driving activities end with us back in the F-Paces, this time on one of the several handling circuits and with all systems disengaged. We attempt to slide around the corners without spinning out and without veering off into banks of graded snow that line the track. There's no runoff area, just a lightly graded 2m section of ice before the soft quagmire of snow from which there is no unassisted escape. I've managed to stay out of the snowdrifts, but some of my group members have not been so lucky.

It's been an exciting, educational and most importantly, fun day on the ice as we retire to the lodge and take the quick drive back to the hotel. We dine on reindeer and moose and I'm told that this is a norm. Beef is a rarity and you need to be comfortable with raw salmon – a sushi lover’s dream, then. My bed swallows me whole as the excitement of the day takes its toll and gets the better of me. I drift off knowing that day one was only the introduction, and that tomorrow I will have to contend with a 280kW F-Type R-Dynamic Coupe.

A light snow falls as we climb into the Jaguar F-Paces. The F-Types tease us, lined up alongside our SUVs, idling to stay warm and keeping the fluids, well… fluid. By now I’m comfortable with the switch between left- and right-hand drive layouts. While it was a little unsettling at first, once you’re in the car, the steering wheel is found in the same place as what you’re accustomed to – right in front of you.

Before we take to the sports cars, we’re on the Large Circle again and at the helm of the AWD F-Paces, this time with the DSC switched off. The first time we did this exercise we managed to get some small slides going before TracDSC intervened. We would now be able to hold the slides for longer, even if the lack of outright power would make sliding around the entire circumference of the circle nigh on impossible, especially with our skill levels.

Sliding around and dancing on the fine line between slip and grip, I discover a new-found respect for the F-Pace. At speed, you're able to dial in ludicrous amounts of angle and still salvage it, thanks to the FWD element in the very intuitive AWD system. The F-Pace feels more engaging than the Velar – a hatchback on stilts, rather than a scaled down Range Rover Sport. Its nimbleness and agility belies its substantial frame.

It’s all too soon placed out of mind and almost forgotten, as we dash for the F-Types in the second session. As the group members choose their cars and settle in, the 5-year old boys start manifesting themselves with blips of the throttles as we stand in the waiting area, the retractable wings on the rear bobbing up and down as we excitedly push buttons in our new toys.

We head back to the circle to get to grips with the dimensions, low seating position and naturally, the hike in power that the F-Type possesses. While the SUVs are equipped with the road-legal knock-in studs, the F-Types have been shod with motorsport-inspired Lapi Studs, a screw-in variation which protrudes further from the tyre surface, allowing it to dig deeper into the ice in a bid to tame some of the 280kW that the Jaguar tries to put down.

It certainly is a different animal with less body roll, and much less weight transfer under braking and when lifting off the throttle. I have to modify my driving style a little, but the taut chassis communicates well, even on the slick surface of the ice. The RWD bias of the F-Type’s AWD system, and the increased power, means that the small slides that we were managing to coerce out of the F-Paces become extravagant, big-angle drifts in the coupes. Our confidence builds, and the instructors seem to agree, so we are pulled off of the circle and make our way to the next, more challenging track.

We enter the short, tight Slalom track with dad behind the wheel. This compact, technical track has a series of tight lefts and rights, followed by some short straights and longer hairpins. It's a great track for practicing transitions, making sure that you keep the weight of the vehicle as planted as possible. Get too creative and it will spit you out, and get too eager with the throttle and you will rapidly run out of real estate - two facts that I summarily forgot when it was my turn to drive.

I head out after switching seats with dad, and manage to hook up the first few corners with something that almost, but not quite, resembles intention. At some points, I'm merely a passenger, but for the most part, the car is doing what I ask of it. I enter the long left-hand hairpin after carrying some speed down the short straight. I lift off the throttle early and turn in even earlier. The tail steps out and I counter it, the momentum of the car carrying it into a perfect line around the corner. I apply a little opposite lock and feed in the throttle. It looks good and it feels even better. I am a driving God!

I mash the throttle exiting the turn, wanting to power my way into a counter slide for the next corner. I realize quickly that my exuberance has finally gotten the better of me, as the front wheels bite while I still have a healthy dose of countersteer dialed-in, and they pull the nose out wide. I jump on the brakes, but the aggressive lift off of the throttle does nothing but expedite my trip across the narrow band of run-off area and I'm briefly airborne before crashing at a precarious angle into the snowdrift.

The snow spray clears and I assess the situation. We're both ok and I offer an apology to my father, who looks a little bewildered but still manages to pull off the “I told you so” look that fathers do all too well. The big cat is bogged down in 3 feet of Sweden's finest and I am unable to open the door. I sheepishly radio in our predicament, and Ian is deployed to come rescue me.

It's no easy task and after twenty minutes of shoveling snow, two tow ropes of different lengths (yes, I was that far off the beaten path) and nearly requiring a second Land Rover Discovery to extract us, we manage to break free from the icy clutches of the white powder and ice and continue around the track. My track time has been wasted by my own foolishness and no sooner have I completed my lap, than I'm called in with the session brought to a close.

My misfortune brings the rest of my group much merriment, but I try to remain humble and coy. I admit defeat rather than blame my tools or some random anomaly, plus the instructors have seen it all, so playing Bogart will not fool them at all. The instructors are kind, reassuring me that even monkeys fall from trees, but having been bitten properly, I mull over the event that transpired and kick my own behind with a wet and icy hightop.

Dinner sees more jeering at my expense, but it seems I was not alone. Several other participants also managed to wedge themselves in situations that resulted in chilly rescues. It reassures me, and I make a conscious note to concentrate more tomorrow, acknowledging my limitations.

An early morning peek through the curtains presents me with ominous clouds dotting the otherwise clear sky. The stars are still out as I rise, with thickening clouds in the distance obscuring the lights on the mountains in the distance. Checking the temperature is a regular thing out near the Arctic Circle – you need to know how bad it’s going to be, as it’s critical to your survival out there. My phone’s app says that it’s -29 degrees Celcius – the coldest that we’ve seen thus far.

By the time we reach the academy lodge, breakfast being digested to keep us warm, the clouds have moved in, blotting out the sun. It's thick and grey and it's starting to snow. Large, perfectly formed snowflakes cascade down on the cars and our jackets, the still air allowing an unhindered descent to earth. The cloud cover and mist brings an eerie tone to our surroundings, and has a clearly adverse effect on the temperature. It is warming up ever so slightly, if you could ever call -14 degrees warm...

The objective of the day is to reacquaint ourselves with the supercharged V6 F-Types and then graduate to the force-fed V8 monsters, culminating in a series of fast slides, drifts and sprints, all performed to the bellow of a 5.0-litre engine. It's done in steps, though, and we first have to select a V6 to play with. It was an AWD V6 that bit me yesterday and I would rather not re-enact that scene again, so I go looking for an RWD version to go play with. I know that it was the AWD layout that tripped me up, and that in an RWD I would have just spun out instead of sending the car into a low-level orbit.

I step out into the chilly air and wander down to the cars, checking the bonnet scoops to see which ones are AWD and which are rears-only. I've hesitated that fraction too long, and all the tail-happy two-wheel drive versions are spoken for. There's only one car left open, number 11, and as I approach it my heart sinks a little. I spot the cracked bumper, my ham-fisted handiwork from the day before. “So we meet again, my friend...”

Determined to make right with the car and mend our relationship, I climb on board and slip into the mindset needed for maintaining control of an AWD F-Type. There's less steering input needed. A full countersteer will right the car from almost any sort of slip angle, and applying throttle has to be done carefully. In the RWD you steer the front with the steering wheel and the rear with the right-most pedal.

The snow ceases for a brief moment, and the fog plummets to the ice. Visibility is reduced and I can see no more than a few hundred meters in front of me. I can make out the entire convoy of cars as we drive to the faster handling track with long, sweeping turns that seem to go on forever, but we've been asked to run with our headlights on.

Dad sits alongside me in the two-seater as I head out and start trying to memorize the turns. The track is a combination of decreasing radius sweeps and sudden direction changes. It's a test of our ability to correctly position the cars and get the speed and attitude in check before requesting anything else from the chassis. I'm somewhat nervous – Number 11 and I have a sketchy past, so I cautiously take the first few laps to recalibrate my driving style. Things are going well and in a few of the tighter corners, I'm managing to hold long slides and position the car where it needs to be. I still struggle with the longer, faster sweeps, but just because the road curves, doesn't mean it has to be taken sideways.

The session is over all too soon and I realize that I've just run a clean sheet, hardly setting a foot wrong or a tyre off the groomed ice, despite the reduced visibility from the low-lying mist. My confidence is somewhat restored, and I have managed to keep both a good pace and the Jaguar in one, albeit somewhat worse-for-wear, piece.

As we head back to the base station, the instructors tell us to be quick with our changeover. Stepping out of the V6s and into the V8s, the cabin environment is nearly unchanged but the soundtrack attached to the accelerator pedal differs more than just a little. The Lapi Studs have their work cut out for them, trying their best to harness the 405kW from the supercharged 5-litre engine.

On the wide expanse of the Large Circle I, figuratively, find my groove. Two laps are all we're given but I make the most of it, managing to hold a fast, near continuous slide right from the outset. I last saw the speedo needle swing past 140km/h and didn't check back to see where it ended, all I know is it was fast and sideways. It feels good to me, and the instructor agrees: Andre gets on the radio, offering praise and reassuring me that I have, in fact, gotten it right. Dad has similar luck following in my footsteps, holding massive angles at rather large speeds, controlling the car mid slide and managing to stay out of danger. It's only when he returns to the dummy grid that he loses the back end in the transition from left to right. An easy mistake to make, and one that I take note not to replicate later on.

Our lunch is rushed by the instructors wanting to get us back onto the ice as soon as possible. The fog is now a thick soup and visibility is severely reduced. I bring up the rear of the 7-car convoy but the mist hangs so heavy that I am unable to make out the third car, let alone the leader. Surely this can't be safe...

The track is a series of straights, punctuated by long, tight hairpins with little room for error. We are warned that there is a corner that one of us is guaranteed to go off in. I know that everyone listening to the radio comms in the cars quietly thought to themselves that it wouldn't be them. But Andre was self-assured, to the point of betting that night's round of beers on it. While that may not seem like a bold statement, he reminded us that a round of beers will quickly run up a €200 bill. Expensive indeed.

The testing conditions take their toll and while I manage to escape the cold, harsh grips of the snow banks, Alex is not so lucky. He's firmly planted his F-Type on the outer section of the very corner we were warned about. I cannot pass comment, instead, I sympathize – I know the pain and frustration, the embarrassment, but fortunately not the bar tab. I activate the hazard flashers and tippy-toe past the stricken couple, resetting once I pass and looking ahead to try and make out the next section of the track.

I've memorized the layout, and now I'm at the start of the long back straight. I punch it. The automatic gearbox kicks down two gears and the tyres light up. It may be ice but the studs are doing their best to propel me. The speedo climbs. 80Km/h. 100Km/h. The rear end starts to wander as the vibration from the ice trapped in the rim unbalances the wheels. 120Km/h... and hard on the brakes.

I haven't overcooked it, I've hit the very mark I intended, reading the weight transfer correctly and letting the car slide. I feather the throttle and patiently wait for the exit, all the while making small corrections to the steering wheel and even smaller corrections to the throttle. I exit with the nose pointing right down the centerline of the next straight. I cannot see the end of it for the mist, but I am energized, confident, and having the time of my life.

Corner after corner I hold slides that I would not have imagined possible three days ago. I'm at the helm of a supercharged British sports car in one of the most beautiful places on earth, a place so ruthless, yet so serene. No picture painted with mere words can do it justice. I find myself smiling, sensing that this is why I travelled 14 000km a week ago, that this is what the experience is about. In it, I find my happiness, a sense of self. And in that Jaguar, on that vast, frozen lake in Northern Sweden, my escape.