This is a race circuit with a difference. It's situated high in the French Alps with a surface of pure ice. There is no run-off area and no margin for error. If you get it wrong here, you'll plough straight into a frozen snowbank and destroy your car-simple as that.
No one seems to have told the driver of the sky-blue car, though. The badge on the car's nose says it's a Kia, but with its wide body-kit, it's like no Kia I've ever seen before. With its screaming, high-revving engine reverberating around the snow walls, it sounds nothing like a small Korean hatchback, either. Whatever it is, there's not going to be much of it left unless the driver decides to lift off the accelerator and go for the brakes-soon. But even if that happens, what good will it do? What chance is there of slowing the car down from that speed on this surface?
At last, it sounds like the driver is going to at least try. The engine note falls away. But only briefly. Half a second later, the driver has reapplied the throttle fully, as if just to make sure that it was fully buried in the first place. The car heads for the corner, charging hard past the last possible braking point, surging well beyond any final chance of taking the corner, at least in any conventional fashion.
Just as all seems lost, the driver gives the car a quick flick from the steering. First, the nose is pointed out, away from the corner. Then, at the last possible fraction of a second, the car is turned back in the other direction. Now the nose is tucked back into the corner. Having completed this pendulum shimmy, the car is completely sideways.
All four tires scrabble for grip, throwing up clouds of ice shards that glisten in the winter sunlight. The driver turns a helmeted head to the left, steering the car by looking out the side window. The high-speed slide is beautifully controlled. The rear bumper drifts towards the outside snow bank, but never touches. And all the time the driver holds the accelerator flat-out and never lifts.
This is the Andros Trophy ice racing series, the most spectacular sideways show in motorsport. It's held every year at a series of purpose-built tracks at Alpine ski resorts. Qualifying is held in the morning and afternoon, and when the night comes, the drivers race by floodlight in arenas of ice.
Out on Serre Chevalier circuit, the driver of the blue Kia completes the qualifying laps and trundles back to the paddock. I follow, but by the time I find the car again, the driver has climbed out and disappeared. The mechanics are hard at work, though. Already the car is up on jacks and, very carefully, the studded tires come off. Next, front and rear panels, hood and trunk are removed, allowing full access to a mid-mounted V6 engine.
This is definitely no ordinary Kia. With its four-wheel-drive chassis, removable body panels and engine set behind the driver, it's similar in specification to the Group B rally cars of the mid-80s. The ones that were banned for being too fast and too dangerous.
Piloting something like this is definitely a job for a hard case, if not a head case. I go off in search of the driver. I have a picture in my mind of a 40-something bloke, probably a French national rally champion in his youth. Now the race suit would be a little strained with a bit of a Biff,ff,,fff,,f,,fff,ff,,,ff,,f,,re Blonde gut and the cropped hair would have turned grey. But he'd still be hard and fit-looking, he'd have to be to drive something like this on the ice.
What I find instead is petite 26-year-old Justine Monnier. I have to wait my turn, this French lady has autographs to sign for her fans-a legacy of her reputation as the fastest lady on ice. This morning, she has finished third in a sport that is pretty much dominated by men who fit my mental stereotype. But how did Monnier end up here?
"I was a professional ski racer before, but I broke my knee three times," says Monnier. "I applied for Trophff,ff,,fff,,f,,fff,ff,,,ff,,f,,e Andros and there were 150 girls. I won and got a free season. I finished second in the Ladies Cup and after that, I went with the big cars and the boys."
Just how powerful are the big cars? They produce 350bhp and weigh just 2094 pounds, but, says Monnier, it doesn't feel like that. "Actually, on ice, you don't really feel the power, because the car is sliding quite a bit. You don't have the feeling of a lot of power pushing you into the seat. It's easy to drive with four-wheel-drive and four-wheel-steering."
Easy to drive? Come on, that's got to be an exaggeration. "It is really easy," insists Monnier, "but it is hard to be fast. When you want to go really fast, you have to focus very hard, but not push too hard, because if you touch the wall it is finished. It is too easy to just push too hard and reach your limit". Success in ice racing seems to require a delicate balance of pushing flat out, yet displaying the most delicate nuances of car control simultaneously. Monnier says her experience as a ski racer helps.
Twenty-six-year-old Marguerite Laffite brings another form of discipline to the sport. And, of course, a famous motorsport name. Laffite rolls her eyes when she hears the suggestion, probably for the hundredth time, that it was inevitable she would follow in the footsteps of her Formula One driver father, the much-respected Jacques. "No, absolutely not. My sister and I loved horse riding with a real passion. We were always around motor races, but never interested."
Laffite cut her teeth in the comedy-looking, all-female Sprint Car series. It's fair to say this series displays a variety of talent. On the warm-up lap, several of the buggy-like little cars spin off and another gets rather embarrassingly stuck on top of a snow bank. But don't underestimate the ladies' desire to win, not with the prize of a step-up to a "big car" the following year. "Yes," says Laffite, "that championship can get quite bitchy, because we are girls and we want to win."
To be fair, the rear-wheel-drive, motorcycle-engined Sprint cars look pretty tough to drive on ice. Laffite nods in agreement. "The Sprint cars are quite difficult to drive compared to these cars," she says, nodding to a mid-engined Peugeot 307 Coupe/Cabriolet, which she shares with 24-year-old Marlff,ff,,fff,,f,,fff,ff,,,ff,,f,,ne Broggi. "With the four-wheel-drive and four-wheel-steering, it is much easier to be aggressive and be quick and attack a lot."
As the sun fades away and the night sky drops down to fill in the dark zigs and zags of the high Alpine peaks, it's soon time to be aggressive and quick and attack a lot. Now the cars take to the ice in groups of 12. It's one thing setting up a car sideways in a beautiful, balletic slide with the whole track to yourself, quite another when there are 11 other cars all jostling and racing for position. In the heat of competition, ice racing is about as sophisticated and genteel as a demolition derby.
A little bit of pushing and shoving goes on. The occasional bout of: "Oh, did I nudge you into the snow wall? I'm so sorry" is not unheard of. Where the ice grows thin and the studded tires cut through to the tarmac, sparks fly. And so do tempers.
Twenty-three year-old Aurff,ff,,fff,,f,,fff,ff,,,ff,,f,,lia Marti, who bears an Andorran flag on her overalls, believes you can make your temper work for you-sometimes, anyway. "There are places where if you can get aggressive, you will go faster, but there are other places where if you are stressed, the results will be bad."
"Ice racing isn't very hard physically," Marti assures me as the mechanics attach the engine cover and rear panels to her BMW 1 Series. "And because it isn't very hard physically, the difference between men and women is less than in some other motorsports."
Behind her, the airguns rattle for the last time; all four wheels wearing those skinny studded tires have been bolted on. The mechanics release the jacks and the car drops to the ground. Marti pulls on her gloves, balaclava and helmet and slips over the roll cage before strapping herself tight into the racing seat.
Cars enter the arena one by one, like gladiators into a coliseum. The French crowd roars its approval. Some drivers attack instantly. Ice tires bite hard into the frozen surface, engines stutter briefly on rev limiters and headlights shimmy across the snow walls as the four-wheel-drive chassis struggle to put down 350bhp in a straight line. Other drivers take their time, because they know that on every lap the ice is different to the last, and tonight the track has rutted badly. Knowing where the deep ruts lie may not guarantee victory, but it might just stop you from ripping the front suspension off.
Yet when the starter's flag drops, it's impossible to tell the cautious from the bold. Each car launches forward in a frantic attack. At least the lead driver has a clear view of the track. Those behind are not so lucky. Vision is blocked by the bodywork of other cars and by the snowstorms kicked up by the studded tires.
On they come through the darkness, utterly committed. Drivers fight for position, inches apart as they fly through corners at 70mph. Sideways is the norm, but backwards will do; any angle can work as long as you don't lift off the throttle. Engines scream at full revs and exhausts spit flame in this whirling dervish of a dance. Most, but not all, make it through. One car drifts by beautifully, but sadly just a tad too wide. It just kisses the frozen snow bank, but it's enough to rip off the rear bodywork and destroy the rear steering. It limps back to the pits, the broken rear steering causing further damage as the bodywork swings uncontrollably against the concrete wall of the exit tunnel. Another driver gets forced wide onto the deep ruts-you know your race is over when you can see a shock absorber protruding through the hood.
I recall what Marguerite Laffite said earlier about the damage the ruts can inflict. "When you go over the bumps, it is horrible for the car. When you hear the noise, it makes you just think: 'Oh, my poor car, I am breaking it.' It is not very nice to drive."
It doesn't look "very nice" out there and I think back to Justine Monnier's reply when I asked if it ever gets frightening. "No. You can't be hurt here. You are not going fast enough to be hurt if you go off, so you don't get scared. You have to have the bravery, though. But sometimes I do have too much bravery".
Back on the track, two cars race headlong for a corner, neither driver backing off, neither giving nor asking for mercy. They are still wheel-to-wheel when the time comes to put their cars sideways. On a night like this, too much bravery is not such a bad commodity to have.