Okay okay OKAY! I go away occasionally… and occasionally I go away again! But I’m back now, so I’ll be running again very soon!
In the meantime, I thought you may be interested in my latest annual Swedish pilgrimage to worship at the alter named VCDA: The Volvo Cars Driving Academy. (I hope you can read Swedish!)
I’ll write more about it later, but I just saw this photo from the route home and thought I’d whet your appetite.
It was an interesting morning, conditions-wise with roads so slippery that at one point when I tested the brakes in a safe place, the wheels locked and we shot along like a bobsleigh. It was so slippery that the anti-lock brakes were fooled into thinking we were stationery and didn’t kick in until we had almost slowed to a halt under our own weight. Although we were in our Saab hire car, to be fair!
You might notice that in the photo above, Mark seems to be standing gingerly and holding on to the car… yes, it really was that slippery! You can actually see his reflection in the road!
So I particularly wanted to thank Jerry who, on an earlier course, insisted on teaching us how to power-turn a front-wheel drive car. At the time he described the situation we had found ourselves in perfectly: having finally run out of traction on a narrow hill. Steering on full lock, engage reverse, let out the clutch and blip the throttle; then straighten the wheels as the car finishes a graceful pivot around its rear wheels.
Watching the highlights of that day’s Swedish Rally, it was reassuring to know that we weren’t the only ones finding the conditions challenging!