Lamborghinis! On ice! Fantastico!

Let’s start out with an admission: As a third-generation Angeleno, I am far more used to driving in the sunny climes of Southern California, where the four seasons tend to be sunny/cool, sunny/warm, sunny/damp and occasionally cloudy, than at an event titled Esperienza Neve. Even with my limited knowledge of Italian, I knew that it must involve “experiencing snow,” so when Lamborghini offered me a chance to become more proficient in ice and snow driving in the Great North, I thought that anything above zero expertise would be an improvement, so I agreed.

After quickly checking to be sure that the event name didn’t mean “frozen death,” I readily accepted their invite and headed out to the closest REI in order to supplement my LA gear, since it was clear that Tommy Bahama would freeze off his left huarache there. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried.

Arriving after dark at the Hôtel Sacacomie, north of Quebec, I had no idea what awaited me, but bright and early the next morning, I was in for a real treat. I’d been well-fed and slept great after a long travel day with a three-hour time change, so I was up and ready early. I was ferried the short distance from the charming hotel to the frozen lake on which the professional piloti carved several tracks of varying shapes and sizes (see photo, top right) on which we could master (or stay alive during) the various challenges that awaited us: circular drifting, slalom drifting, and race-course drifting, to name a few.

The track area was huge, so there was no risk of running off-course and hitting another car (or a tree, or a polar bear). The proficient Lamborghini drivers who accompanied me in each driving experience were terrific, a great blend of professional driving skills, easy camaraderie, and some stand-up (sit-down?) comedy thrown in for good measure.

My steeds for the experience were three of Lamborghini’s top models. Of course, the Urus SE, Lamborghini’s hybridized Super Sport Utility Vehicle; the Huracán Sterrato, Lamborghini’s “off-road” version of the Huracán; and the Revuelto, their latest and greatest hybrid car with a base price of over $600,000. If Lambo were going to offer me a combined one million dollars’ (just counting base prices!) worth of cars to practice drifting on the ice, who was I to argue?

The track day began with a familiarization lap in an Urus. The goal of this driving experience was to be in a controlled slide for as long as possible, and so the drivers were able to wow with their absolute confidence and ability to keep the car in a slide for the entire circuit. To the uninitiated, it seems counterintuitive to want to “fishtail” a car: why not just try to get around the track as quickly as possible without sliding? One answer is that it’s more fun to go sideways in a controlled manner but, somewhat surprisingly, it also was the quickest way around the course.

Fresh off of the demonstration rides and feeling like this would be easy, I was sent back out on the course (with an instructor in the passenger seat) to apply what I had learned in the five-minute driver training by driving a Sterrato around the oval part of the course. Hilarity ensued. It looked easy while the driver, chatting the whole way, took me sideways through the whole course. It may be “monkey see, monkey do” in the rhyme but this was “journalist see, journalist try, journalist wipe out” as the order of the day — at least at first. Luckily, we had several laps to practice and, with expert coaching, each of us improved with every go.

It was then time for the Revuelto to show its stuff and for that, I was on more of a road course, with left and right turns, chicanes, and sweepers. The Revuelto is the first of what Lamborghini calls an HPEV (High Powered Electrified Vehicle), boasting a V12 motor and three electric motors for a combined output of 1,015 CV (just a pony over 1,000 HP). (Note: Did I need that much power? Well, it isn’t about needs with these cars, but I loved driving it.) As a guy who’d rather floor than tread with care and caution, I soon learned that “easy does it” is the order of the day.

Last on my playlist was the Urus SE on a tighter road course, with tight left-handers and right-handers, a large gradual curve (a sweeper), and a short straightaway. Although it has a higher center of gravity than the earlier two cars I’d driven (due to the high ride height as well as the tallness of the vehicle), it handled wonderfully. It was interesting to put together all of the bits and pieces I’d learned earlier in the day, but it was a fitting way to end the day since drifting the Urus is so satisfying… and forgiving.

What did I learn from the experience? Let’s start with humility. Like many things that look effortless when done by a seasoned professional, it took some doing to be comfortable looking out of the passenger’s-side window at the road ahead, on purpose. Another lesson was that, with some practice and a good seat-of-the-pants gauge, one really can feel the car sliding and know what to do and when to make it a fun experience rather than something that feels totally out of control.

I also learned that, for weight-saving purposes, the Sterrato has a reverse gear that’s powered by the electric motor in the front so, if you leave the track pointy-end first into a snowbank, you can leave both pride and traction at the door — the onsite all-wheel drive pickup will come by with a long rope and unceremoniously pull you back to civilization. Did I do that? No, thankfully, though I did bring the Sterrato on an off-road excursion, leave the ice track at one point and, while deciding the best way out of the situation was more power, threw skyward a big rooster tail of snow and ice. That one moment alone was worth the price of admission.

Speaking of “worth it,” this experience definitely was. It’s a great action-adventure in a gorgeous surrounding, driving top-of-the-line cars — none of which I really had thought of as having much off-road cred — and realizing that, with some training, the laws of physics seemingly can be amended on the fly.