VICE ON ICE

How long does it take to master ice skating on four wheels? If you're in an Audi Quattro, turns out...in 72 hours!

- Nishant Padhiar

-20° on the weather app is more ominous a number than I've ever seen on my smartphone, but it strangely hasn't put a seatbelt on my excitement. I've signed up for three days of drifting, on ice, on a frozen lake, 250kms north of the Arctic Circle in Finland...sounds like an unmissable event. Even if it means losing bits and bobs to a Finnish frostbite! This is the Audi Ice Experience, usually filed under the "Bucket List" category.

It all starts with KBC level fastest finger-first round of online reservations, since the seats for an experience like this are understandably limited. But, Audi instructors collectively coach around 800 lucky participants every year, just in Finland. So it's a better scenario than the Formula One grid for sure. After a brief classroom theory session on the laws of physics that involved the all-critical weight transfer dynamics that come into play when drifting on ice, the exuberance to get behind the wheel was replaced with profound concentration.

HOW TO GET THERE

When you sign up for an Audi Ice Experience, the package includes flights from Germany. There on, flights to Finland could be through Helsinki or directly into Kittila, which is the closest airport to Muonio. A small province in Lapland with an even smaller population, Muonio is home to many lakes, most of which are frozen solid in the winter months.

The drive to Muonio is about an hour away by road. Airport pick-up cabs can be booked 24hrs prior to your arrival at Kittila.