snow report

[sad_rocc at yahoo.com (Dan Smith)]

Hehe, sounds like a lot of fun. Your road conditions amused me, ours are exactly like that all winter long. And we got that much snow in about 2hrs today, radio called it a "brief flurry". ;) Enjoy the snow! I hope to be in an old Audi 4kQ soon myself.

 

Dan



>From: "T. Reed" 
>To: scirocco-l@scirocco.org
>Subject: snow report
>Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 19:19:05 -0800 (PST)
>
>Well, after a few weeks of minimal dustings and wet, slushy snow due to
>near-freezing temperatures, yesterday we finally got rain (which froze)
>followed by a sharp temperature drop and some semi-decent snowfall..
>making for an icy layer covered with a couple inches of traction-assisting
>snow.
>
>I hadn't bothered taking the roc out for a snow romp previously because of
>the weak snow, but last night I went outside and cleared the roof and
>hood, scraped the ice off the windows and fired her up. I was very pleased
>with how well my 'split pipe insulation over the wipers' trick had kept
>the wipers from freezing to themeselves and to the glass. It took a good 5
>minutes off my prep time not having to deal with all that ice.
>
>Before I even made it out of the parking lot I saw a Honda with all
>seasons that had skidded across the pavement and in to a dirt mound.. he
>was paying a tow truck driver to pull him out. I knew then that it was
>going to be a fun night.
>
>And how! The ice kept virtually everyone off the roads (only other car I
>saw was a cop who gave me a suspicious look when I gave him a thumbs up)
>and gave me a chance to get to know my new studded tires.
>
>It was an absolute blast; I couldn't believe how well the Scirocco did. I
>felt like I had 4wd! M+S tires kick ass! But at the same time it wasn't
>"like driving on pavement" which is good too because pavement is boring to
>drive on now that 'I'm hooked on the white stuff'.
>
>So I hit an empty parking lot and started seeing how far I could go.
>Oversteer was obviously the biggest problem, but a little throttle to
>shift weight to the rear seemed to overcome that every time. I only got
>understeer once and when I turned in to the skid it vanished and didn't
>come back; must have been a patch of bare ice. The handbrake is my new
>best friend; it's so much fun in soft powder! I had snow all over my car
>again when I got back home :)~
>
>I was concerned about 'too much torque' being an issue with my 2l 16v
>and 3.94 r&p but I found that all I had to do was upshift and the problem
>went away. And 1st & 2nd gear were fun for flinging snow and zigging
>around as fast as possible.
>
>I only came close to getting stuck once, when I had "trailblazed" through
>untouched snow about a quarter mile.. I was turning around and got
>the front end in to some deceptively deep(er) powder. The tires were just
>spinning so instead of panicing I backed off immediately and went in
>reverse, turned a little and tried going forward again. With some careful
>clutching to control wheelspin (in order to gain initial momentum) I was
>able to pull right out of the tough spot in 3rd gear. It felt a lot like
>driving a boat on the way out with the tires spinning about twice as fast
>as the car was moving as they clawed through the powder.
>
>I went back home to grab a thermos of hot chocolate and a camera and took
>some pics.. here's one of the better ones:
>
>http://students.washington.edu/treed2/orange-snow-sky.jpg
>
>(as you can tell I was having a problem with the side windows fogging up;
>I wish I could get the blower motor to give me about twice as much
>throughput..)
>
>Die hard canadians will get a good laugh from the amount of snow in the
>picture, but keep in mind that there's a nice layer of ice underneath it
>:) I almost fell on my ass a few times walking around on the bare
>ice before the snow started falling.
>
>Anyway, the verdict is: rocco + (ice and snow) = (fun and excitement) !
>
>-Toby
>
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