It’s morning. The sun’s rays slowly filter through the crowds, revealing fresh snow that fell overnight. You are 1030 meters above sea level. Before you lies virgin powder on a freshly modified professional drifting track. There are ten sports cars. You are behind the wheel of one of them. Left hand on the steering wheel, right hand on the gear lever. Release the clutch and depress the accelerator. Three, two, one… Do you want to experience how a sports car handles the snow? Our partners Ricard & Bonette created this awesome drifting experience and our CEO Petr Udavsky went along for the drive. Ready to Drive Supersports Cars in the Snow?
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We had the latest generation Subaru WRX STI (manual transmission) or the popular Toyota GR Yaris. And for fans of rear-wheel drive sports cars there was a Toyota GT86.
The whole race track consists of various smaller circuits. I didn’t just go around and around, but tried several different types of circuits in one day. Some were more technical, others were faster. In each section, I received different tips and tricks from an instructor who was giving me remote advice.
The Drifting Experience in Austria
In the second half of the day there was a new kind of entertainment – after several hours of driving, the snow under the wheels was down to ice. Time for drifting! It was just pure adrenaline. Speed up, slow down, turn and cut a turn.
The parking brake is for children! Sometimes it feels like you fly too. But that’s part of the whole experience. It did feel safe. Higher soft snow is piled up around each track, so the sports car eventually just slips and brakes.
In Austria we covered about 120 km per day on snow and ice, which was around seven hours of driving. The ice trails and circuits exceeded 4 km in length. There was sports driving training, then drifting training on a large circle, and then a race!
All of this was in the picturesque Stegergut winter resort, located in a saddle between the mountain peaks of Salzburg, which offers perfect conditions for ambitious winter adventure. In case of really cold weather (min. -5 degrees) you do the driving with studded tires.
Driving is not the end of the fun. After a day of zooming about a winter driving paradise, we had two nights in the four-star Hotel Eggerwirt and its beautiful spa. Located in the heart of the Salzburg Lungau Biosphere Reserve, close to the ski slopes, it’s the epitome of cosyness and Austrian tradition: comfortable rooms, wellness with a large indoor swimming pool, sauna, fitness, sunbathing rooms, wellness treatments or massages.
You can combine your stay with skiing on a fantastic 8km piste nicknamed the A1. The ski lift is only a 5-minute drive away from the hotel. The excellent Ainkehr restaurant on the Katschberg was also a highlight, because everyone deserves a great draft beer and an excellent steak after such a day of driving!
