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Smooth As Ice
By Larry Edsall

Leaves are changing color, and there are frost warnings overnight. If that's how it is where you live, these pages are for you. Even if it's warm year-round in your neck of the woods and snow is something you only encounter on a skiing vacation, there are some things every driver should know about negotiating extreme weather conditions. The first is to be prepared. Here is some winter-prep advice for both cars and drivers.

• CANADIAN RACER-TURNED
driving instructor Richard Spenard says there is only one real challenge to driving on snow and ice: anticipating something that cannot be anticipated.

Spenard and other winter-driving experts say that people need to hone specific skills beforehand to deal with the unexpected when the roads are covered with snow, ice or a combination of the two. Often, even when roads are clear, temperatures could be so cold that high-performance summer tires lose some or much of their grip.

"I would say the biggest thing nowadays is, if you're going to be driving as an enthusiast, you need to have the right tires," says Tommy Archer, half of the famed Archer Brothers who dominated ice racing in the upper Midwest a couple of decades ago. Tommy still lives in Duluth, Minn., where he runs Archer Properties, a real-estate management company. This past season, he drove for Viper dealer Bob Woodhouse's SCCA World Challenge team, starting six races and winning three.

Archer says that not having winter tires for the street is akin to going road racing ::m street rather than race tires. But that's llardly the only lesson from racing that Archer says should be applied to driving in winter weather.

"People forget the engine is cold, and )Tet they'll blast off 50 mph down the road in the morning," he says. "Race teams ,tart engines 10 minutes before they race when it's 75 degrees out. It's not to warm IIp the coolant but the oil. And people aeed to make sure they have the right weight of oil in the car for cold weather."

Back to tires for a moment: "When ,omeone puts on winter tires and it's in a really cold climate, tire pressures will drop three to four pounds from the time they put them on in the garage to when they go Dut in the cold," Archer says. "The right tire pressnre needs to be maintained."

Archer also says that cleaning or replacing windshield wipers and making sure the washer reservoir is filled with de-icing liquid are crucial, because a good driver needs clear vision to anticipate what's coming.

In winter, says Bondurant instructor Dan Bullock, "the performance levels of your car are diminished greatly. Your grip levels are a lot lower. It takes the car a lot longer to react to any input you give it"

 

"Probably the worst time is when you get the first snowfall or fresh snowfall and the road crews haven't sanded or graded," he says. "Each car polishes the braking zone as it approaches a stop sign [or a red light]. I drive a little on the shoulder to pick up some sand [or cinders] that might still be there. It's like driving on the racetrack in the wet-you go for the 'dirty' part, rather than drive in everybody else's tracks.

"That was true even in ice racing," he notes. "Traffic would wear down a 'stopping groove' that could be two or three inches deep. We learned to move over a foot or two and to stay out of those tracks. We'd have better control in braking and could go deeper into the comers."

While the Archers made their names racing on ice, he says caution is crucial when driving on public roads in wintry weather.

"Everything is different," he says. "You have to plan where you're going. You have to plan your stops. You need to know that without proper tires, your ABS can't work if it can't get grip. You really have to watch the other people."

"Give yourself more space," says Dan Bullock, an instructor at the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Phoenix, where snow is not generally part of the climate. Bullock grew up in New Jersey, though, where driving meant dealing with winter weather.

In winter, Bullock notes, "the performance levels of your car are diminished greatly. Your grip levels are a lot lower. It takes the car a lot longer to react to any input you give it. For the most part, you need to keep a slower pace and be a lot more aware of your surroundings. Know that harsh inputs to the car are never a good thing and are even worse-they amplify-in winter driving conditions. Nothing's going to happen as quickly as when you have ideal dry conditions. Some people, when it's icy and snowy, tend to feel like they have the confidence to get the car to do what they need it to do. They're mistaken!"

Bullock adds, "Other people feel that they need to drive 2 mph." That, he says, only makes the road more dangerous, because other drivers continue to buzz around you and even spin out of control toward you. You need to maintain enough momentum to get out of the way.

"The No. 1 rule is to adjust your speed for the conditions," says Morgan Kavanaugh, instructor at the Bridgestone Winter Driving School at Steamboat Springs, Colo., where, for more than 25 years, everyone from skiers to Secret Service and military personnel (some driving only after dark and while wearing night-vision goggles) have been trained in specialized cold-weather driving techniques.

Kavanaugh says the conditions involve a lot more than the weather. The winter driver's scan of the road has to include more information, such as cornering angles and road camber that might encourage a vehicle to slide.

"A good driver reacts," he says. "A great driver anticipates."

Mark Cox, director of the school, adds, "Even with all the technologies in the world, you can't overcome the laws of physics." Traction control, ABS and stability control are meant to help the driver recover in an emergency situation, not to take over the responsibility for normal control of the vehicle.

"The technologies only give you a buffer," Cox says. ''If you've already made a mistake, all the technology can do is to try to keep it from becoming catastrophic. You should never invoke these systems. You, as the driver, are not off the hook."

Even if your vehicle is equipped with specialized winter tires, you need to be equipped with winter driving techniques.

STOCKING YOUR CAR FOR WINTER

Keeping the tank at least half full is the key to avoiding water in the gasoline. And be sure to carry these things:

• Charged cell phone
• Road-service number
• Windshield-washer
• Fluid
• De-icer
• Boots
• Scraper/snow brush
• Shovel
• Water
• Blankets
• Something for traction: cat litter. sand. road salt

 

"Your natural instincts are the devil's temptation," Kavanaugh says, explaining that in order to maintain grip and control in slippery winter conditions, the driver must make a conscious effort to treat braking, steering and' acceleration as separate acts,

For example, if your vehicle starts to slide, it does no good to stab the brakes or crank the wheel until the vehicle has slowed enough to regain some grip, At that point, the driver can make corrective maneuvers, remembering, however, that even with the right tires and antilock brakes, stopping distances on icy roads may not be as short as anticipated.

Weight transfer is crucial in dealing with winter conditions, which can tum even a normal drive to the office or gym into an experience not unlike racing around an oil-slicked track. NASCAR racers such as John Andretti, who grew up driving in winter conditions in Indiana and Pennsylvania, compare the sensation of racing a stock car on high-speed ovals to trying to maneuver while dealing with fast-moving traffic at speed on ice.

A DIFFERENT SET OF tires is essential for the colder months, especially for owners of high-performance cars that freezes, creating a winter-weather equivalent of aquaplaning. typically come with grippy summeronly rubber,

"If you live in an area that will receive snow, you should consider winter tires, because they work well in the snow and in below-freezing temperatures," says John Rastetter of Tire Rack

Shouldn't all-season tires be OK? Yes, especially if you live where the snow is rarely deep or if you do all of your driving in urban areas where the roads are cleared quickly, But Rastetter says the allseason variety will be far from ideal in a big storm or severe conditions,

''There is still no technology that can create a tire that can do it all really well," he points out

Tire Rack is a retailer with an interest in selling tires, of course, but it also does road-testing of tires and provides shoppers with comparative data on its Web site, Rastetter isn't just malking a sales pitchTire Rack has the objective analysis showing that the differences among compounds are profound

"Because an all-season tire has to be able to survive in summer's warmth, its compound's flexibility cannot be as pliable in below-freezina temperatures. As the compound stiffens, it sacrifices traction in both wet and snow:overed conditions."

Demand for winter tires has qrown in part because "a higher percentage of cars are equipped with summer tires from the factory to complement their performance; they become helpless when temperatures drop." Rastetter notes that this has led to shortages of winter-tire supplies in recent years. Motorists who procrastinate until the first snowfall have come up empty-handed.

Tire companies only manufacture winter tires in the summer months and face output constraints. In parts of Europe and in Canada, winter tires are required by law. Rastetter said this causes tiremakers to funnel more supply to those areas, so supply could be outweiqhed by demand in parts of this country again this season.

While the expense of winter rubber may be a concern, consider that if they help you avoid even one minor accident you won't be paying the deductible on repairs and an increase in insurance premiums after making a claim. Those costs are likely to be much higher than that for a set of special tires. And if you take the expensive, high-performance summer tires off the car for three to five months of the year, they'll last that much longer.

For performance carsespecially those with different-size wheels front and rear-owners mav find that nothing is offered in stock sizes. We encountered this last year during a long-term test of the Jaguar XKR. The front winter tires were available, but no one in the United States offered the 275/ 35R-19 size required at the rear. A monthlong winter catnap for our Jag finally ended when Dunlop air-shipped an evaluation pair of rears from Europe. An ordinary consumer may not have fared so well.

Such difficulties most often apply to sports cars not often used in winter, such as the Chevrolet Corvette. Those who would rather not garage their powerful performers when the snow flies but can't find winter rubber can fall back on performanceoriented all-season tires such as Goodyear's Eagle F1 All Season or Michelin's Pilot Sport Ws. These can suffice for light snow conditions, but they may suffer reduced traction even on dry pavement when the temperature falls below 40 or 45 degrees Fahrenheit

We've had no problems getting winter tires for this year's long-term test cars. Pirelli provided Winter 240 Sottozero tires for our Audi R8 and Jaguar XF Supercharged. Otherwise, these cars, with their originalequipment high-performance tires, would be useless during a Michigan winter.

-JONATHAN WONG

 

Winter tires benefit from specifically developed rubber compounds, blocky tread designs and lots of tread depth to generate snow-to-snow traction. Tiremakers have come up with different methods of keeping compounds pliable In the cold. For instance, Bridgestone uses an additive called RC Polymer in Its Blizzak WS60, and Michelin uses a sunfloweroil-enriched Helio Compound for the Pilot Alpin PA3 to improve tread flexibility in low temperatures.

Kavanaugh notes that roads usually are most slippery not at zero or below but when temperatures are right around 32 degrees Fahrenheit. That is when a vehicle's weight can cause just enough snow melt to create a thin film of water that freezes, creating a winter-weather equivalent of aquaplaning.

Instructors at the Bridgestone school also want their students to use the nine 0' clock and three o'clock hand placement and to shuffle the wheel between their hands to avoid a situation in which the arms are crossed, leaving drivers unable to steer properly once the vehicle regains enough grip.

Speakingof the driver's hands, former Formula One racer and two-time Le Mans winner Allan McNish suggests that if you're driving a manually shifted vehicle in the snow, "you should be one gear higher than you'd normally be" in order to better manage torque and road-surface conditions. Some vehicles with automatic transmissions have a winter program that does the same thing, running one gear higher than normal to minimize torque multiplication of lower gears.

"All inputs you make as a driver are diluted," the Scotsman says of driving in wintry conditions. "You have to anticipate everything and anything."

McNish, who races an RlO TDI for Audi and recently was named American Le Mans Series driver of the decade, has one other suggestion for winter-weather driving. "Don't crash," he urges, "because if you do, when you get out of the car, it's going to be very cold outside.""

NOVEMBER 3, 2008 AUTOWEEK 17