Cadillac Drivers' LOG:Driving the Kinross Tundra

[Bruce Nunnally]

By Rob

Earlier, I mentioned our visit to the frozen tundra of Kinross. Here’s a look across the tarmac. If you look really closely, you can see a tiny little speck just above the horizon in the middle of the picture. That’s a small plane preparing to land. This former U.S. Air Force facility still has a working runway that operates adjacent to the vehicle test site.

The facility is pretty unique. It’s maintained and groomed a bit like a ski hill or an ice rink. There is a big oval course that is probably 1,500 feet or so in diameter. This is sort of a double oval - one is a lane entirely covered in ice, the other covered in snow. We also use a handling course that is basically like an autocross or a simple road course. The difference here is that it is covered with a consistent coating of snow. There is also a “snow field,” which isn’t actually a field, but rather a big swath of tarmac covered in snow. The snow field is used to test aspects such as emergency maneuvers, accident avoidance and lane changes. There are two other “pads” roughly the size of a football field each that are completely ice-covered. We come here so frequently that the company has leased one of the former Air Force buildings as a garage. In the coming days, we’ll have a chance to post some more shots of our cars going through tests that are pretty extreme.

Cadillac Drivers' LOG