Article: ICAR Winter Driving Course Aims to Aid Quebecers Develop Important Skills

[DannyITR]

ICAR Winter Driving Course Aims to Aid Quebecers Develop Important Skills

By Danny Geraghty January 21, 2014

I had the opportunity to attend a demonstration of Circuit ICAR’s winter driving course last January 9th at their sprawling facility located on the tarmac at Mirabel Airport.

Mirabel Airport is still operational as a cargo airport but the vast passenger terminal and surrounding tarmac was leased to Circuit ICAR who have constructed a race track capable of holding drag races, road races, drifting events, motorcycle races and even hosts a stop on the NASCAR Canadian Tire series.

ICAR is taking advantage of the winter months to offer this course. Standard driving schools do not teach the skills necessary in order to control a car skidding out of control, rapidly avoid an object in poor traction or make an emergency stop on ice. Judging by the amount of cars we see in the ditch during any given snow storm, these skills are sorely needed.

After registering we were greeting by professional race car driver and automotive journalist Carl Nadeau who then took us to a classroom for a special presentation by him and Jacques Duval. Duval won the first Grand Prix de Trois Rivières in 1967 and is the founder of Le Guide de l’Auto.

The presentation was an interesting breakdown of the theory behind the maneuvers we were about to practice on the skid pad and how to properly execute them. These include sudden braking on sheer ice, how to recover from understeer and oversteer situations, and object avoidance.

We went outside and divided ourselves into groups, each with a professional ICAR instructor. The vehicles we’d be using were Mitsubishi RVR SUVs, Kia Forte sedans and a Ford Mustang. The instructors were knowledgeable, friendly and fun to work with.

At the end of the two and a half-hour course, each of the journalists felt like their driving skills had benefited from the instruction. If you are unsure or uneasy while driving in poor weather then I highly recommend taking this course. It just might give you the tools necessary to avoid ending up in the ditch like so many of our fellow drivers.

For more information visit the Circuit ICAR website at www.circuiticar.com

 

[trish07]

I absolutly need to try this....it looks so fun and you are learning and the same time.

 

[OldSchool16v]

Très bon cours et belle initiatve. Se genre de cours devrais être de base à la saaq pour obtenir son permis. Il y a trop de gens qui ne savent pas conduire sur le tarmac et avec la glace et la neige sa multiplie se nombre par 1000.

 

[allroad]

Would like to try it, should be mandatory for all drivers.

 

[[Ef]saceone[sF]]

ça doit être nice dans les GT!

 

[El Maestro]

Very interesting, especially now that I have one.

 

[CRNKY]

Would like to try it, should be mandatory for all drivers.

It's mandatory to know how to drive just to get a license, look at all the morons holding licenses and completely clueless about signs (their meanings) and the rules. Honestly they made it way too easy to get a license here, the written and driving tests are a joke. They could just make it an application and send it to you in the mail and it wouldn't make any difference.

 

[Gregster]

It's mandatory to know how to drive just to get a license, look at all the morons holding licenses and completely clueless about signs (their meanings) and the rules. Honestly they made it way too easy to get a license here, the written and driving tests are a joke. They could just make it an application and send it to you in the mail and it wouldn't make any difference.

Well said!

 

[trish07]

It's mandatory to know how to drive just to get a license, look at all the morons holding licenses and completely clueless about signs (their meanings) and the rules. Honestly they made it way too easy to get a license here, the written and driving tests are a joke. They could just make it an application and send it to you in the mail and it wouldn't make any difference.

X1000!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[250Rocket]

:thumbsdow

It's always the same BS. Use this car that you probably don't drive, equipped with snow tire you won't buy and we'll force you to listen to the droning of some instructor explaining you theory that unless you're a matante you already know. Oh and we'll charge you 200 dollar for it.

What we need in an open but private area to just mess around and get a feel for our car. How far does the car need to emergency stop, how fast can I safely take a turn on packed snow and when the car does start to slide, to practice correcting it because unless you practice over and over again all the theory in the world won't help you in a panic moment.

Just divide the track into zones and then pick days to rent out those sections for people to mess around inside of at price like $30 for 30 minutes. Because God forbid we do this in an empty parking lot, cops swoop in and give us thousand dollar tickets for our safety.

Just my opinion.

Edit: Rereading my post, this is not to say that a Winter driving course is useless, It would be extremely benificial to new/young drivers who don't have experience I'm just frustrated by the fact that to my knowledge there's no open areas to practice by yourself in your own car without needing to worry about over zealous cops needing to meet quotas.

 

[Cab0oze]

:thumbsdow

It's always the same BS. Use this car that you probably don't drive, equipped with snow tire you won't buy and we'll force you to listen to the droning of some instructor explaining you theory that unless you're a matante you already know. Oh and we'll charge you 200 dollar for it.

What we need in an open but private area to just mess around and get a feel for our car. How far does the car need to emergency stop, how fast can I safely take a turn on packed snow and when the car does start to slide, to practice correcting it because unless you practice over and over again all the theory in the world won't help you in a panic moment.

Just divide the track into zones and then pick days to rent out those sections for people to mess around inside of at price like $30 for 30 minutes. Because God forbid we do this in an empty parking lot, cops swoop in and give us thousand dollar tickets for our safety.

Just my opinion.

Edit: Rereading my post, this is not to say that a Winter driving course is useless, It would be extremely benificial to new/young drivers who don't have experience I'm just frustrated by the fact that to my knowledge there's no open areas to practice by yourself in your own car without needing to worry about over zealous cops needing to meet quotas.

Yep, agreed. Also, if they made it more reasonably priced, they'd have tons of people there. That's my #1 complaint about icar... everything is so overpriced for what you get. If they lowered their prices that place would be packed 24/7.

 

[JagImaging]

Icar has their snow attack events where you can go beat your car in snow conditions in a safe environment.

 

[skylox]

Yep, agreed. Also, if they made it more reasonably priced, they'd have tons of people there. That's my #1 complaint about icar... everything is so overpriced for what you get. If they lowered their prices that place would be packed 24/7.

Never been to iCar so don't know about their prices but in general if you want a good instructor he needs to be compensated . If you like , I can be your instructor for half price of what iCar charges but u prolly won't learn nothing lol

 

[Broody]

C'est plus fun et moins cher d'aller drifter a mecaglisse. Premier hiver que j'y vais pas, je me contente du ski dans les alpes

Envoyé de mon Nexus S en utilisant Tapatalk

 

[Cab0oze]

Never been to iCar so don't know about their prices but in general if you want a good instructor he needs to be compensated . If you like , I can be your instructor for half price of what iCar charges but u prolly won't learn nothing lol

heh yeah I hear you, but ICARs prices are on par with learning to fly... in which case you are 1) flying and 2) have your own instructor for the entire time. The one time I went to a class at Icar, it was follow the leader where you don't really learn much. People don't learn by tracing someone else's work, they learn by making mistakes and being told what they did wrong.

 

[250Rocket]

Icar has their snow attack events where you can go beat your car in snow conditions in a safe environment.

Close but not a parking lot type event. As I understand it, you go from point A to B and then get back in line to do it again. I believe its super cheap like $15 but again not what I'm looking for.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Edit: Rereading my post, this is not to say that a Winter driving course is useless, It would be extremely benificial to new/young drivers who don't have experience I'm just frustrated by the fact that to my knowledge there's no open areas to practice by yourself in your own car without needing to worry about over zealous cops needing to meet quotas.

The parking lot owners are less likely to call the cops on you if you actually contact them and reach an agreement for the use of their property. Just saying...