A Slippery Day at Porsche’s Camp4 Winter Driving School
Performance
Sports Cars
Featured
Events
Just because there’s snow on the ground doesn't mean it’s time to park your sports car in the garage for the winter. At least, that’s the philosophy at Porsche, which has operated the Camp4 winter driving school for years—in a bid to convince owners that their German-built performance sleds are equally fun when sliding across the ice as they are turning hot laps at the track.
Porsche runs its winter driving experiences all over the world. We attended the 2016 season kick-off at Mecaglisse, a rally school located about an hour north of Montreal, Quebec. The goal of Camp4 is simple: to provide Porsche owners with world-class instruction from the brand’s team of professionals on the fine art of car control in the most slippery of icy conditions.
Choose Your Weapon
The Camp4 experience runs several days—and there's also Camp4 S and Camp4 RS to further your education with more intensive experiences. But for the media, the program was condensed to a 12-hour romp. Our Camp4 fleet consisted of brand-new Porsche 911 Carrera GTS and 4 GTS coupes, alongside several Porsche Cayman GTS models, each of which was running studded Nokian winter tires.
The heavy metal selection at Camp4 is no accident, as the array of automobiles offered a wide range of low-friction driving styles. In the Carrera GTS, the rear-wheel/rear-engine layout can hold a drift for days, and swaps ends quite willingly if you get overenthusiastic with the accelerator (once traction-control has been switched off). The Carrera 4 GTS adds the extra wrinkle of all-wheel drive, which gives you the power to pull out of a slide and set up your next turn, while the Cayman GTS features an exceptionally balanced and forgiving mid-engine setup.
The all-wheel drive Carrera 4 GTS offered the best grip on the ice.
Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
Even with studded tires assisting the traction, driving Porsche's powerful sports cars on any one of Mecaglisse's ice tracks is a challenge that requires a careful understanding of physics. Specifically, weight transfer and momentum: our instructors explained the fine details of oversteer and understeer, and taught us how to use the throttle as another tool in getting turned in the right direction. Hanging the tail out in the 911 becomes second nature after a few laps around the iced-over skid pad, while the so-called Scandinavian flick—a technique where feinting to one side before initiating a turn in the other direction—shows how important weight transfer can be when entering a corner. At the end of the day, it was time to put together all of these skills on a snowbank-lined circuit designed to put our car control capabilities to the ultimate test.
The Carrera GTS loves to hang its tail out thanks to its rear-engine layout.
It was an eye-opening experience to operate Porsche’s performance machines at full throttle with only a modicum of grip between glory and getting stuck. But Camp4 is the perfect place to get out of your comfort zone and learn how to handle difficult driving conditions in a safe and controlled environment. You might never find yourself at the starting line of a rally stage, but the skills you learn at Porsche Camp4 could very well save your life driving home one evening in a blizzard.
About the author
Share your feedback
This article is meant to provide general guidance only. Automotive maintenance, repair, upgrade, and installation may depend on vehicle-specifics such as make and model. Always consult your owner's manual, repair guide for specific information for your particular vehicle and consider a licensed auto-care professional's help as well, particularly for advance repairs.