[Cal Metal]

We race on the ice up here. There are two ways guys do it. You either run a Blizzak type snow tire or you run studded tires.

Which cars do the best? Usually old Mazda 323s with AWD. The type of driving is polar (no pun intended) depending on your choice of tires. The Blizzak crowd performs more of a dance on ice--pumping your brakes for turns, making sure everything is controlled to prevent a spin. Much slower and deft. The slicker the ice (no snow accumulation), the trickier it is.

The studded tire crowd is balls to the wall driving. Driving with studs is like racing on gravel, to some degree. It is really a blast because you really can't spin them out in a FWD car and, if you do, you have a mile on either side of you to complete the spin--no walls, fences, or barricades. Very little risk of injury or hitting something. You throttle steer through every turn.

You can call it an AutoX, but it is really more circular than what you would find in a dry pavement AutoX. The gates are very far apart (the Blizzak crowd would have difficulty with a real short windy course) and you--we don't, anyway-- really use a chicane. The track is 1.5 to 2.0 miles in diameter which is quite a bit longer than a regular AutoX. It is a real blast, but the cars that normally partcipate are not new machines. A Cobra could do this but power would not be an advantage with non studs. One with studded snow tires would be an interesting proposition, though. That might prove to be some real fun.