Counter-intuitive doesn’t quite cover this one. A frozen lake is, correct me if I’m wrong, the slipperiest place on planet earth to walk, let alone drive a car.
Yet here we are, nosing a Subaru WRX out onto the – frozen – water. Depending on your character, you may, or may not, want to have the car’s sat nav or Google maps running on your phone at this point. On one hand, it makes for a very cool picture to see yourself slap, bang in the middle of the big blue bit; equally, some find it a touch disconcerting to know there are Northern Pike living their best life just a few feet beneath the wheels.
Either way, on paper there’s more than an element of the outlandish to what we’re doing here. Forget the paper. Focus on the fun.
And Ice Driving USA is just that. Aside from DirtFish School time, you will never laugh, smile or learn more than you will in Wisconsin next February.
Spool up the blower, spin the wheels and send it between the snowbanks at some of the most outrageous angles of drift ever. And the best bit? You start doing all of that at little over walking pace. Honestly, you’ll feel like an extra in Gymkhana 2022 before you’re even out of first gear. It’s time to channel your inner Travis Pastrana. Within reason…
I’d like to say there’s more to Ice Driving USA than the driving, but there really isn’t. You think there is. But then you get back in the car and remember why you’re there.
And that’s saying something because bookending the all-important seat time is a location which won’t be easily forgotten. Turning off State Road 70 just before the Nutty Squirrel, you’re bound for Dollar Lake in Eagle River and a true winter wonderland. Listen carefully and you’ll catch an earful of screaming two-stroke as skidoo after skidoo heads for the hills and even deeper powder.
And having opened a window to cock an ear to the engine noise, your senses are further overloaded with a pervading smell of woodsmoke from lakeside fires. But it’s when you’ve finished the hot chocolate and the toasted marshmallows are all gone, that’s when the out-of-car amazement hits home. Pull on the winter suit, stand in the industrial-spec boots, put a hat, on a hat, on a hat and slide a handwarmer into each glove.
Then walk out onto the lake (obviously checking there are no cars coming).
You might notice the ice hockey players have all gone; the clack-clack-clack of stick-on-puck is missing. There’s nothing. But this is more than nothing.
This is surreal silence, the sort you only get when the temperatures are in the very low 20s (we’re talking Fahrenheit, which is chilly chilly in Celsius). The birds stay quiet, the Canada Geese have long since headed south and in the middle of the lake you’re far enough away from any other wildlife noises.
When the Wisconsin winter’s truly doing its big sky thing, there’s an absolute purity at times like this. The whitest white stretches out before merging into a deep, beautiful blue sky. The sun seems to be perpetually in your eyes, it doesn’t climb high enough to avoid line of sight. But it generates little in the way of warmth.
Moments later and there’s that crispy tingle on the inside of the your nose, followed shortly after by the corners of your eyes feeling like they’re closing, ever so slightly. It’s because they are; the moisture is beginning to freeze. So, that’s why everybody wears goggles…
Ice Driving USA is a whole winter experience. It takes you to a place you’ve never been before – a place where total sideways meets complete solitude.
It’s exquisite, very, very cold and utterly unmissable.