Discussion Forum - Northstar Chevelle Club

This one is a bit long winded but I got to participate in a similiar training coarse like this once. But it wasnt a a race track environment. It was a training coarse in offroad driving and I helped a handfull of about 5 of us build this coarse. Meaning a coarse for 4X4 and AWD training. Back in the mid 90's, I worked a Carosel Porsche/Audi, Land Rover. They were in a small building on the SE corner of 169/394. They are still there but this was before LR moved to Eden Prairie, and Porsche and Audi got thier own seperate buildings.

At that time, the lot right next to us was vacant and there was a frontage road that ran along the retaining wall for the Betty Crocker drive exit ramp that comes off east bound 394. Ran in front of our dealer, the then Pontiac dealer (thats now a Jaguar dealer) and the Toyota dealer at the end of the block. General Mills owned the vacant lot and it was nothing but grass and weeds so the owner of carousel had the idea to set up an off road coarse and train invite customers with new Land Rovers to come and get training on how to drive thier vehicles in defensive driving and situations like getting unstuck in winter time. Not only would they get some expierence behind the wheel, they also got a lot of the "here is the things you can do in your new Land Rover".

They were able to get that training because we had also got in touch with Land Rover themselves and arranged to have two factory reps right from England fly in and train owners/drivers as well.

We contacted General Mills for permission to use the land for setting up this coarse in the middle of winter and they granted it to us. So we rented a big front end loader and started moving the snow around this empty lot to create a "road" with many curves and a very large pile of snow well over 45 degrees for owners to climb up, crest, then down the other side. The snow pile ended up being a about the length and a half Land Rover tall. We then packed it down to from a ramp enough to drive up over and down. But still very, very steep. Almost enough to tip a truck over, end over end.

Once we got the road and snow mound the way we wanted it. We went out and rented a tanker truck full of water and sprayed it down and let it freeze over night. The next morning we got exactly what we wanted, an "ice road" that leaves you slipping all over the place if you werent carefull behind the wheel. Nice glaring ice and all.

So with the perfect road and the reps that flew in the night before. Customers lined up in the morning that day to get thier coarse training as the reps were riding shotgun just like any training school.  At the end of the day. Employees were told we could grab a few Land Rovers off the used and new car lots and have one of the reps bring us around the coarse to the various situations and get training on how to handle a Land Rover if it ever happens.

Plus get training on how the Land Rovers work when your off road. Especially when it comes to the snow mount portion. That was steeper then a 45 degree angle. You were to pull up the mound and stop. Drive up it and stop at the top, then crest downward and stop pointing down. 

I remember having that thing pointing downward in such an angle that it almost felt like we were going to tip end over end on our roof (thus going forwards) I was even sliding forward in my seat as if the truck was in a nose dive.

At the end of the day, everyone got a signed certificate that we completed the coarse.

With the Discovery at 40 grand at that time and the Range Rover model well over 55K. We beat the $hit out of those brand new trucks that day. None of which had more then maybe a few 1000 miles on it. If that.