What’s the difference between a great winter rally driver and an amazing winter rally driver?
A couple of days ago I asked Anders Grøndal, 10 times national Norwegian rally champion, this exact question. Having known him for several years I knew he was the right kind of guy to ask such a delicate question.
Anders was born and bred in the midst of the Scandinavian winter rally scene, as was both his grandfather and father. You could say Anders had no other option than to become a rally driver, and now 30 years old, he holds a reputation of being lightning quick on snowy mountain roads.
And when I say quick, I mean quick. Check out this inboard video of Anders below giving me a ride along in the mountain stages of Numedal this past week…
So what does it come down to? What differentiates the elite few from the rest of the field in the art of winter rallying? I had spent quite some time cooking up this question, but it didn’t take Anders more than about two tenths of a second to answer it: commitment. That’s the only difference between a great winter rally driver, and an amazing winter rally driver.
So there you have it. Now, I know a fair bunch of you Speedhunters regulars out there are not just into cars, a lot of you are also into driving them hard. Not all of you live in parts of the world that see four seasons, however, and following our annual Gatebil on Ice event reports I’ve received plenty of questions about what it’s actually like to race on ice.
So, with that in mind, I’ve decided to dedicate this Speedhunters post to the art of ice racing, and hopefully teach you a little speed secret or two along the way.
