When VW Dubai shared their first competition of the year, a lot of us online took notice. I replied to their tweet, with what I thought was a reasonable answer… not begging them to pick me, or responding that I already drive their vehicles (I have a Tiguan), I replied with an honest answer. I wanted to win their chance to go to Sweden to learn how to drift in the snow, because I didn’t know how to handle a car when it skids and didn’t want to get caught out next time I’m in France with mum, headed for the slopes one winter. 5 days later, I was on my way to Sweden! There were 4 of us coming from Dubai, Ziyad and Islam were winners from the various track days and races that VW held, and Pisi was a PR rep from their agency. Landing at the airport, we were paired up and whisked away into VW Golf R’s, heading straight for the hotel (it’s a good job I didn’t have more wine on the flight).
We learnt to drift straight away and with studded tires on a frozen lake it was actually pretty easy to get the car sideways. From emergency braking activities and direction changes on the dynamic area, we moved to the tracks, which as the days went on, got longer and longer. By the 3rd day we were driving solo around 5km looping circuits, having learnt the racing lines, and how to spot the apex’s on corners so that we can plan for either long or short drifts.
There was some free time too, where we jumped on board some ski-do’s and hit the adventure trails and the VW team surprised us with polarised vehicle drifting… it’s the kind of adventure that gets every guy in your life incredibly jealous… so I tried not to post pics online too often 😉
It was more than fun, it was an unbelievable experience! There’s something so freeing about being able to push, test, prod, turn buttons off and be able to handle a car in the way we did that week, where ‘going off’ or crashing was a case of hitting the white snowbanks covering the frozen lake, and being pulled back on by the Toureg that was the safety vehicle, with nothing more than a laugh and an orange sticker in your windscreen (points system).
By the final day, the full 7km track was ahead of us, and time trials were the aim of the game. I didn’t do too badly either, which surprised both me and the instructor Ronny (Guinness World Record holder for the tightest parking at speed). We spent the evenings eating, enjoying the local vino and catching up on some much needed rest… there’s high adrenaline when you’re in the cars so you burn quite a lot of energy fast.
Check out our video recap (made by Ziyad and his Go Pro) on Facebook!