This is a race circuit with a difference. It's situated high in the French Alps with a surface of pure ice. There is no run-off area and no margin for error. If you get it wrong here, you'll plough straight into a frozen snowbank and destroy your car--simple as that. No one seems to have told the driver of the sky-blue car, though. The badge on the car's nose says it's a Kia, but with its wide body-kit, it's like no Kia I've ever seen before. With its screaming, high-revving engine reverberating around the snow walls, it sounds nothing like a small Korean hatchback, either. Whatever it is, there's not going to be much of it left unless the driver decides to lift off the accelerator and go for the brakes--soon. But even if that happens, what good will it do? What chance is there of slowing the car down from that speed on this surface?
At last, it sounds like the driver is going to at least try. The engine note falls away. But only briefly. Half a second later, the driver has reapplied the throttle fully, as if just to make sure that it was fully buried in the first place. The car heads for the corner, charging hard past the last possible braking point, surging well beyond any final chance of taking the corner, at least in any conventional fashion.
Just as all seems lost, the driver gives the car a quick flick from the steering. First, the nose is pointed out, away from the corner. Then, at the last possible fraction of a second, the car is turned back in the other direction. Now the nose is tucked back into the corner. Having completed this pendulum shimmy, the car is completely sideways.All four tires scrabble for grip, throwing up clouds of ice shards that glisten in the winter sunlight. The driver turns a helmeted head to the left, steering the car by looking out the side window. The high-speed slide is beautifully controlled. The rear bumper drifts towards the outside snow bank, but never touches. And all the time the driver holds the accelerator flat-out and never lifts.
This is the Andros Trophy ice racing series, the most spectacular sideways show in motorsport. It's held every year at a series of purpose-built tracks at Alpine ski resorts. Qualifying is held in the morning and afternoon, and when the night comes, the drivers race by floodlight in arenas of ice.
Out on Serre Chevalier circuit, the driver of the blue Kia completes the qualifying laps and trundles back to the paddock. I follow, but by the time I find the car again, the driver has climbed out and disappeared. The mechanics are hard at work, though. Already the car is up on jacks and, very carefully, the studded tires come off. Next, front and rear panels, hood and trunk are removed, allowing full access to a mid-mounted V6 engine.
This is definitely no ordinary Kia. With its four-wheel-drive chassis, removable body panels and engine set behind the driver, it's similar in specification to the Group B rally cars of the mid-80s. The ones that were banned for being too fast and too dangerous.
Piloting something like this is definitely a job for a hard case, if not a head case. I go off in search of the driver. I have a picture in my mind of a 40-something bloke, probably a French national rally champion in his youth. Now the race suit would be a little strained with a bit of a Bire Blonde gut and the cropped hair would have turned grey. But he'd still be hard and fit-looking, he'd have to be to drive something like this on the ice.
What I find instead is petite 26-year-old Justine Monnier. I have to wait my turn, this French lady has autographs to sign for her fans--a legacy of her reputation as the fastest lady on ice. This morning, she has finished third in a sport that is pretty much dominated by men who fit my mental stereotype. But how did Monnier end up here?
"I was a professional ski racer before, but I broke my knee three times," says Monnier. "I applied for Trophe Andros and there were 150 girls. I won and got a free season. I finished second in the Ladies Cup and after that, I went with the big cars and the boys."
Just how powerful are the big cars? They produce 350bhp and weigh just 2094 pounds, but, says Monnier, it doesn't feel like that. "Actually, on ice, you don't really feel the power, because the car is sliding quite a bit. You don't have the feeling of a lot of power pushing you into the seat. It's easy to drive with four-wheel-drive and four-wheel-steering."
Easy to drive? Come on, that's got to be an exaggeration. "It is really easy," insists Monnier, "but it is hard to be fast. When you want to go really fast, you have to focus very hard, but not push too hard, because if you touch the wall it is finished. It is too easy to just push too hard and reach your limit". Success in ice racing seems to require a delicate balance of pushing flat out, yet displaying the most delicate nuances of car control simultaneously. Monnier says her experience as a ski racer helps.
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